Spelunky on the iPhone would be a godsend.

Oh snap, that's a Monday. I should be able to be there. Will confirm when I calculate times and sleep patterns.

Did you mean the 1st of Feb, or the 2nd of Jan?

January 2nd, 2009.

I should be able to make this one.

I also propose that we talk a little about VVVVVV and the end of Assemblee Pt. 2, alongside the standard What Are You playing and What Are You Developing.

The iPod used marketing devices that are bog-standard for mass market consumer electronics; namely: promoting the idea that ownership of one denotes style, status, youth, etc.  They did so through the spending of millions on advertising, and, more peripherally, the product's physical design.  I'm curious as to what resemblance you believe that has to a superficial re-branding of a cult product's genre name?

Was this in response to me? Because I agree with your sentiments.

I consume whatever I want for whatever reason I feel like. Because I enjoy it, because I learned from it, whatever.

I think experiencing a lot in a particular medium can help you in making yourself better at producing works in that medium, assuming you are doing this with the self-awareness to examine your feelings and thoughts on what you are consuming.

In other words, some people play a lot of games and don't really think about how the gameplay mechanics overlap each other in a fundamental way. They simply look at the game and go "I don't like it because I don't like this," rather than evaluating just why they don't like it and how it pertains to the rest of the game. This same knowledge applies to movies and books. An intelligent reader can point out when the book became plodding for him and why (was it due to the sentence structure? vocabulary used?), and an intelligent movie-goer can point out why certain cinematography in a scene is bothersome to him (is it inappropriate given the material it is presenting? does it potentially leave plot holes?)

I like to think that most critics are self-aware like this, but honestly, most are not. Most critics as far as I can tell go a single layer into their opinion, just brushing the very surface. Good critics (which are few and far between) go deep into why they dislike or like a particular work, often pulling examples, interconnecting elements, and even referencing their emotions and past experiences in the review.

I think that's probably because you don't have too much experience in terms of marketing, no offense here. There's a reason why the 'iPod' (which was 'just' another mp3 player) has become so successful - cause they managed to tell a different story. People were looking for mp3 players, but they wanted mp3 players that are actually easy to use and are stylish - Apple told that story and told it so well that their iPod sort of spawned a revolution. If they would've marketed it as just another mp3 player, it would've gone lost in the masses - and that's exactly how I feel about games like Passage, Majesty of Colors and so on.

Except it was marketed as another MP3 player. Just a stylish, minimalist one. It wasn't until the later iPods (especially the iPod Touch) that it began being marketed as a multimedia device rather than simply a stylish music-playing brick.

There's a difference in marketing between a market and a brand's identity in that market. The iPod is not the only MP3 player on the market, it's just the most prominent due to smart business decisions. TiVo had a similar experience with the DVR market until cable boxes started getting built-in DVR. Both were synonymous with their particular markets for a while (especially TiVo) but the markets were still there. Other DVRs besides TiVo were around and other MP3 players besides the iPod were around. And both products were still called MP3 players and DVRs.

In comparison, it would be like relabeling games that "make you cry" (which is a fucking bullshit statement anyway, since any game designer worth his salt should be able to provoke a player's emotion in a game) as "Rohrers" or "Passages." I think the term "games" is just fine, and arguing over relabeling it just seems like pedantic, pretentious horseshit to me.

Long story short, I hate this relabeling games argument and how it spawns a multi-page thread every month or two.

there is so much more to violence than mere red clouds

super joe knows all about violence.

to original poster: looks interesting. all your promo codes have expired though.

(Ok, we're not rich yet, but considering that Harvest had stopped selling completely on Steam, it's pretty good!)

This is sad because Harvest is AWESOME.

When are you going to start selling The Strategist again?

Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best written movie ever.

I think both can exist harmoniously, and I agree 100% with Caliber9.  I'm sorry about not posting the last couple of TIGCasts on the front page.  To be honest, it's hard to follow this long thread and I'm not caught up to speed on what's going on.

So... you guys should continue, and I can set up a Projects subforum for TIGCast.  Each TIGCast should have its own thread, really.

Whaddaya thunk?!

I think that this would be most excellent. I also think that moderators of the TIGcast subforum should be me and godsavant, given that we are the two primary fellows working on organizing this thang.

You haven't missed anything in the way of podcasts. #2 went up with no fanfare whatsoever and #3-5 are sitting on my hard drive waiting for my schedule to die down so that I can get them wrapped up (even though it's been something like a month since #3 was recorded. I'm terrible.)

I like to play videogames instead of endlessly debate calling them video games.

Haha, awesome on the sale!

also, i was about to reply to dragonmaw's list but superjoe beat me to it, all his responses are 100% valid

you really gotta be fucking kidding me.

Frozenbyte really are a bunch of dad touchers.

dad touchers is the best part.

im gay

I can't argue with that.

Tim is watching you

AI War
Audiosurf
Defense Grid
Eets
Gish
Hammerfight
Harvest
I-Fluid
Killing Floor
Larva Mortus
Light of Altair
Babo: Invasion
The Maw
Mount&Blade
Mr. Robot
Musaic Box
Osmos
Raycatcher
Serious Sam
Shadowgrounds
Shattered Horizon
The Ship
Spectromancer
Sword of the Stars
Trials 2
Trine

These are all indie games which I own only on Steam whose developers I do not recall ever stirring up controversy. Not only that, but I can't think of any of them that stirred controversy through gameplay either. Ones already mentioned (Torchlight, World of Goo) were not added to the list.

I think it's safe to say that most indie games are not all that controversial.

I just waited until MDickie made his games freeware instead of buying them. They are so bad I didn't want to waste money.

Zeno Clash was a good modern brawler. One of the few.

Super Joe: Man of the people. Man of beating up people. Truly the biggest hero of all time.

I actually do the same, funnily enough. And yes, there is a LOT of shit to wade through. But Tim put it very effectively there. If you wade through a thousand posts to reach a good one you can post about, it was a good day.

Also I don't think I do it quite as much as he does (I work and trawl communities for news for, at most, 5-6 hours). I have a huge backlog to go through here.

Tim W. is what I aspire to be in my job. It's a lot to live up to!