Idle Thumbs

Sixteen months after leaving Malaysia, the team reunites to reminisce, reflect, and record one final episode of Every Game in This City! Beaming in from Australia, Sri Lanka, The United States, and Malaysia, we takes turns updating one another on new projects and new play experiences that occurred over the past year. Laura E. Hall leads the discussion as we remember our favorite moments, some lessons learned, a few things we missed, and start to think about what we want to do next! Is there another game in another city we’ve set our sights on for the new year?

In this episode, Soren interviews game designer Alex Hutchinson, Creative Director at Typhoon Studios and best known for his work on Spore, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Far Cry 4. They discuss how they both would have screwed up SimCity, how working at Ubisoft is like Brewster’s Millions, and what happened with Spore.

Games discussed: Pepper 2, Sensible Soccer, SimCity, The Urbz, The Sims 2, Spore, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Assassin’s Creed 3, Far Cry 4, Journey to the Savage Planet

Rob and Troy are joined by Kotaku's Luke Plunkett to discuss Unity of Command 2, the long-awaited sequel to on of Three Moves Ahead's favorite wargames. How does the new setting change the game, and what's with all these new buttons?

Sound design for trailers is a unique skill all its own. We discuss everything from rises to bass drops and Henry Cavill reloading his fists. You'll never listen to trailers in the same way again. Ric also dives deep into the moment to moment sound design of the new Black Widow Trailer.

Trailers Discussed or Clipped: London Has Fallen, Crank, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Fountain, The Matrix, Battleship Trailer 2, The Bourne Supremacy, Black Widow, The Fate of the Furious, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible Fallout, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Dark Knight, Antlers.

Links: Trailer Music Weekly, Score a Score, Montage MX, Robert Etoll, Boom Library, Big Fish Audio Blockbuster Trailer, Big Fish Cinematic Sound Design, Video Copilot Motionpulse, Bing Bang Boom.

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T.J. and Fraser are joined by Bruno Dias (@NotBrunoAgain) to talk about Planet Zoo, Frontier's spiritual successor to zoo tycoon. Animals are great, but is managing everything around keeping them happy? Why are there 30-50 feral hogs on my trade screen? Zoo-ne in to find out!

In this episode Derek and Ric are talking good trailers for bad movies. Also, everyone's favourite blue hedgehog is back to break the internet again and so we dive into Trailer 2 for Sonic...

Trailers Discussed: Sonic the Hedgehog, Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, Ultraviolet, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Prometheus Teaser Trailer, Silent Hill, Godzilla: King of the Monsters Trailer 1, Godzilla: King of the Monsters Trailer 2, Godzilla: King of the Monsters Final Trailer.

If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected].

Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Troy, Jon, and Rob have been to The Nam and deep in "The Shit" this week as they play Serious Sim's narrative wargame, Radio Commander. To what extent is Radio Commander an actual wargame versus a cleverly disguised RTS choose-your-own-adventure? Does the distinction matter? What are the game's politics, and how do they affect Radio Commander's portrayal of contemporary politics? Most confoundingly, the crew wrestle with whether this is a good game that people should play, or merely an interesting experiment.

It’s the beginning of the end and we’re back to our regularly scheduled program after our surprise escape pod experience last episode! This time, Stephanie Boluk does a double take and finally gets a chance to debrief with the team and reflect a little bit on everything that has happened over the course of 7 days and 50 escape rooms (including new experiences we just had at the original Breakout in Avenue K and back at Lost in KL.) In our final interlude, Patrick, Amani, and Chad get tangled up in Mr. Oswald’s Greatest Show, a creepy marionette masterpiece where the players become the puppets and half the team tries out Exit: The Abandoned Cabin in a midnight escaping session. As the Kuala Lumpur trip comes to an end, we’re all starting to feel the Escape Room Effect.

What makes a great game trailer? In this episode Derek and Ric discuss making game trailers, capturing footage, storytelling and how best to represent an interactive experience...

Trailers Discussed: Firewatch, BioShock Infinite E3 Demo, Dante's Inferno.

If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected].

Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Rob and Troy play the new, 3D Close Combat: The Bloody First and see how it measures up to the series' history.