GeekNights 20100701 - Non-Legos

MrPeriod

Tonight on GeekNights, we ponder the nature of the constructive toys of our youth that weren't Legos. In the first half, it being Thursday, we idly discuss the Steam Summer Sale and the intricacies of breakfast sandwich acquisition.

• Scott's Thing - Paper Freedom GUNDAM
• Rym's Thing - Meat Suitcase

Download MP3

Victor Frost

I hope you mentioned K'nex and Erector Sets.

Pegu

They did indeed.

Neito

Did they make terribly immature jokes about Erector sets?

Jason

Robotix, bitches.

Techparadox

Gotcha one better - Ramagons. I think I was the only person around to ever have those things. They were basically plastic struts with octagonal spheres as their connectors. Very sturdy if you built properly, but just as apt to snap the clip-ends off the struts if you weren't careful.

Apreche

Here are the Construx aliens.

Alex

I remember Construx. I also remember combining Construx with Legos to create personal armor. Those were good times.

cosmicenema

where's the beef?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where's_the_beef?

VichusSmith

Check this out:

Construction toys


I think there's sexual innuendo in this commercial.

Pegu

Scott's project that might make money?

Apreche

Scott's project that might make money?

Ah, no. That was just something I did randomly yesterday because I needed it for a panel at Connecticon I was preparing. It took just an hour or two.

Techparadox

Expanded Show Notes:

Geeknights 20100701 - Non-Legos

Expanded Show Notes - Show Run Time: 00:52:18

Time | Notes
---------+----------------------------------------------------------
00:00:00 | Intro
00:00:27 | Opening Chit-Chat
| - Fireworks or Bed-Wetting?
| - Scott is working on a project that may result in moneys
| - Discussion of street naming in NYC
| - Early Fireworks in the city annoy Scott
| - Upstairs Karaoke Guy annoys Rym
00:08:05 | News
| - Discussion of what constitutes news?
| - Steam Sale going on (and Scott actually bought a game) but it's weak
| - Where's the beef?
| - Is the Steam Sale really worth it if you're not going to play the cheap games?
| - Discussion of why piracy is an option (Is it even worth the price of free?)
| - Adventure Games (especially ScummVM) and FAQing your way through them
| - All items in the hopper have been pushed back by Con season
| - Breakfast Sandwiches (Rym doesn't like Tim Horton's)
| - NYC food options discussion
00:21:01 | Things of the Day
| - Creator of Fark says that the "wisdom of crowds" is a crock of hooey
| - Rym's Thing - Meat in the Suitcase
| - Carrion in the Carry-on
| - Extreme lack of info in the actual news story
| - Lack of journalism appears to be ubiquitous
| - There needs to be a "WTF?" website of crowdsourced news
| - Scott's Thing - Pepakura Freedom GUNDAM
00:28:43 | Meta Moment
| - ConnectiCon - July 9-11
| - Pax Prime - Labor Day Weekend (Sept 3-5)
| - New York Anime Festival and Comic Con - Oct 8-10
| - NerdNYC Boardgame Night - Oct 8
| - Burning Wheel Con - Oct 8-10
| - Book Club: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
| - Geeknights will be erratic for the next week due to the 4th of July holiday
00:31:36 | Main Topic
| - LEGO and Un-LEGO
| - Tinkertoys and the history thereof
| - Erector sets, old school engineering
| - Rym's Mystery Toy, like a big plastic Erector set
| - K'nex was more for building structures but didn't allow for much structural integrity on a plane
| - Waffle Blocks & Wee Waffle Blocks
| - Duplo & Lego compatibility
| - Discussion of the danger of Tinkertoys
| - Lincoln Logs
| - Cross-system pollination
| - Sidebar into Micro Machines and their playsets
| - Playmobil playsets
| - Rym recalls some toy that was like Construx but was destructable
| - Construx sets
| - Rym recalls the Nerf fencing system
00:51:03 | Outro
00:52:04 | Yet another Shock!

Techparadox

And with that out of the way, my thoughts:

Re: Where's the beef? - Damn, you guys know how to make a dude feel old. I remember when that commercial first aired and all of the kids any my school were running around the playground yelling that for a few months.

Re: Duplo & Lego compatibility - Unless something has changed drastically in the last few years, Lego and Duplo blocks were totally compatible with each other. A standard 2x4 8-stud Lego brick will cover two studs of a standard Duplo brick with no problems.

Re: Tinkertoys - I used to play with these all the time at my grandma's house. The wooden sticks were either six, eight, or ten inches long and just under 3/16" in diameter and if you snapped one of those off at the wrong angle you'd end up with something you could definitely stake a vampire with.

Matt

While I had my Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, Legos, and even a few K'nex, instead of erector sets I had this ghetto shit: http://www.girderpanel.com/ All the fun of steel I-beams, now in your home!

I second the statement that I was made to feel ancient when I realized that most of the people who listen to this show don't understand "where's the beef"

Finally I'd like to say that Rym, you should continue to play harmonica when Scott begins to launch into a long-winded stories. This almost made me spit out my drink.

Kyle

In your rant about SCUMM adventures games (at about 13mins in) you guys managed to get just about everything absolutely wrong!

Scott said he liked the later Kings Quest because the ditched the text input system and when for an icon interface system – well it was Lucasart’s SCUMM engine that pioneered that interface of giving you a set of key actions - talk, pick up, use ect. Until SCUMM it was only text based adventure games!

Also you do know that SCUMM is the original engine and that SCUMM VM is the emulator used to run those old games on current systems?

But your boldest accusation was the SCUMM games aren’t actually games. Firstly, you guys like Professor Layton so it’s inconsistent to take such an aggressive stance against SCUMM adventures games. Rym says that other adventure games were “at least midly open ended” – but a puzzle adventure game should and must be linear, much like Professor Layton is. That said, you do have the freedom to explore and talk to people and find extra funny things in the world – and there’s a cool sense of playing detective that comes with that.

Following on from this Scott mentions something about alternate pathways to failure – but you can’t fail in a SCUMM adventure game. One of the big problems with King’s Quest games was that death was around every corner and it was possible to even get to the final stage of the game only to find you forgot to pick up your sword in the first two minutes of the game. Lucasarts fixed those annoying moments but dispensing death and failure and instead making the focus on puzzle solving and humour. Full Throttle the exception, as there were a couple of places where you could die, but you would simply respawn at the start of that section if you did die.

Rym also says that these games has “crazy fucked up logic.” Again if you can play Professor Layton, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to play Lucasarts adventure games! I can only assume you’re getting confused with other games in the adventure game genre. Back on King’s Quest there was a puzzle where you had to guess the name of a troll. The only cue was a note in a witches house which said “think backwards.” The answer was that the name of the troll was Rumplestiltskin – but spelt not only backwards, but with a backwards alphabet. So A = Z and so on. THAT is crazy fucked up logic.

Meanwhile in say The Curse Of Monkey Island, (a Lucasarts game, but not one made in the SCUMM engine) it’s not messed up logic to use a diamond ring to cut through a glass porthole in the ship in order to let in water and sink the ship. It was the Lucasarts SCUMM games that fixed the genre by creating a logical, self consistent world. Some games like Sam & Max were weirder than others, but they made absolute sense. I can't praise these games enough for the way they encourage and challenge you to think. And like I said they're no more difficult than Professor Layton.

It’s obvious you guys were talking crap about a subject you know very little about. Thankfully that’s rare for the show – but I just had to point this one slip up out.

If you’re new to the adventure game genre I can’t recommend these old classics enough. But perhaps you should also check out the new Sam & Max or Monkey Island games created by Telltale Games, as these games capture the fun and spirit of the original games, while somewhat simplifying the controls (one or two action options as opposed to nine actions).

http://www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland
http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax

Churba

It’s obvious you guys were talking crap about a subject you know very little about. Thankfully that’s rare for the show

I take it you haven't been listening very long, then?

Matt

All I have to say about adventure games is that when The Dig came out, I never did get it, but I saw a book called The Dig w/ the same cover art in the bookstore one day. Picked it up and it sat on my bookshelf until 2009. Leaving for a trip I realized I had no reading materials, so I grabbed that old book figuring I'd get around to finally reading something I had purchased over 10 years ago. My thinking was "oh, a book so good they made a great adventure game out of it. Surely this book will not disappoint". Little did I know, the game came FIRST. This was a novel based off of an adventure game and it made me want to spoon my eyes out. This is saying a LOT for a guy who finds some enjoyable qualities in nearly everything. I eagerly await the Uwe Bol movie adaptation.

Kyle

It’s obvious you guys were talking crap about a subject you know very little about. Thankfully that’s rare for the show

I take it you haven't been listening very long, then?

Hehe, I'm going by internet standards. Or perhaps I've been fooled by their confident, authoritative tone of voice.

Nukerjsr

The more I listen to the Geeknights podcasts...I feel like you guys deal with it like a second job. Like, I'm wondering if you guys would jump at the opportunity to be globally known podcasters with specific personalities or under a certain company. Because you both are extremely professional, but I'm curious if I'm the only one who looks that as a fault to the recordings.

Rym

Scott said he liked the later Kings Quest because the ditched the text input system and when for an icon interface system – well it was Lucasart’s SCUMM engine that pioneered that interface of giving you a set of key actions - talk, pick up, use ect. Until SCUMM it was only text based adventure games!

Scott didn't know that, nor that the Quest for Glory games had the same interface later. ^_~

Firstly, you guys like Professor Layton

I'm already tired of them. They're a movie coupled with puzzles and a weak link between the two. They were fun for the novelty, just like SCUMM games were the first time around, but do not stand the rest of extended play in the genre. I never even finished the second Layton game.

Meanwhile in say The Curse Of Monkey Island, (a Lucasarts game, but not one made in the SCUMM engine) it’s not messed up logic to use a diamond ring to cut through a glass porthole in the ship in order to let in water and sink the ship.

It is when you can't use that ring on any window. These games tend to accept certain logic on some screens, but not others. The vast majority of possibile actions one could take are to no effect.

I can't praise these games enough for the way they encourage and challenge you to think. And like I said they're no more difficult than Professor Layton.

Layton is a bad example: it is in essence just puzzles, most of them entirely abstract from the game itself. It's a book of puzzles interspersed with charm and story, but that's it.

It’s obvious you guys were talking crap about a subject you know very little about. Thankfully that’s rare for the show – but I just had to point this one slip up out.

I've played them all, and I stand by my statements. I enjoyed the SCUMM games when I was young, but now I see right through them. The Quest for Glory series of games had a little more staying power (excepting the first and last of them) due to the fact that most every puzzle had numerous possible solutions, all of them consistent in the world. Brute force was usually also a viable option. They also had the clever writing and humor of the SCUMM games.

These old games had their place and time, and a few are worth playing for someone who's never had the experience before, but I wouldn't recommend replaying, say, Monkey Island for anything but nostalgia.

Apreche

It is when you can't use that ring on any window. These games tend to accept certain logic on some screens, but not others. The vast majority of possibile actions one could take are to no effect.

Precisely.

It actually makes me think of a "game" I have played recently called Doodle God. The thing with this game is that you combine elements to make new elements, and you are just trying to discover them all. It's a time waster with some novelty. The problem is that almost all combinations result in nothing happening. Ideally you want every possible combination to do something, even if it's a failed result.

For example, if you give me a gun, I should be able to aim it anywhere and shoot anything as long as I have ammo. "Sorry, you can't use that here" should never happen. The gun should always fire. If I shoot it at a lock on a door, maybe the door opens. Maybe if I shoot it at a wall, it ricochets and hits me. If I shoot a friendly NPC, they die. I should be able to shoot in the leg vs. shooting in the head. I should be able to shoot out the tires on a vehicle. If I shoot a telephone, it breaks.

Instead, the way these games work, you can't use the gun on anything except the one specific thing they want you to use the gun on. Then for some things they let you use the gun, but give you a failure scenario and make you retry. For everything else, they simply don't let you use it at all, even if it makes perfect sense.

The solution is Sleep is Death.