Idle Thumbs

With the whole cast assembled, Goldie Bartlett introduces our first special guest, Teddy Dief, who helped develop Hyper Light Drifter, co-founded Glitch City, and hosts his own podcast on the Idle Thumbs Network, Playscape LA. Teddy joins the team at Nu Sentral to explore the cinematic worlds and role-playing systems of the escape rooms at Breakout Nu. Then Stephanie, Jey, Shang Lun, and Doug peel off to get sweet and salty about the blend of story and puzzle in “Materia Medica,” a Chinese medicine-themed escape room. Clearly feeling the effects of four full days of escaping, this episode culminates in a feverish jam session where we brainstorm dozens of escape room ideas.

What inspires trailer editors? This time on the Cutdown we dive into the trailers for Bad Boys For Life and Joker, and talk about finding inspiration in unlikely places, and how to keep your work fresh.

Trailers Discussed: Bad Boys For Life, Bad Boys II Teaser, Bad Boys II Trailer, Joker, Star Trek, Waves, Prometheus, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Blindspotting, Little Children, Madeline’s Madeline, Hard Candy, The Social Network, Alien, Dr. Strangelove

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

Nicole Clark joins Rowan and Rob to talk about Klei's Oxygen Not Included and its punishing model of offworld colonizaiton.Learn how everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and how well the game communicates excruciating detail about why your colony is dying.

Laura E. Hall hosts day three where we meet our final team member, Chad Toprak, and talk about global games from Melbourne to Malaysia. Afterwards Patrick joins Laura and Chad to chat about what happens when you lock ten people in “The Tomb of Life and Death,” an asymmetric, architectural escape room. Then the team gets physical with the cramped crawls in Mission-Q and creepy dolls at Lost in KL, two of the most intense escape room parlors we’ve ever encountered yet.

Something True 2.8: Odyssée by Idle Thumbs

Motion graphics can give a trailer a unique look and feel which defines the marketing of a movie. We discuss everything from The Blob to The Da Vinci Code, what graphics add to the trailer process, and talk about a number of our favorite examples. We also speak to professional motion graphics artist Hal Forsstrom about where the industry is going and how to break in.

Trailers Discussed: Morgan, Bombshell, Marriage Story (What I Love About Nicole), Marriage Story (What I Love About Charlie), Man of Steel (Jonathan Kent), Man of Steel (Jor-El), Thor Ragnarok Teaser, Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad, Mad Max Fury Road, The Blob, West Side Story, A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, Star Trek First Contact Teaser, The Da Vinci Code, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Avengers Endgame Teaser, The Matrix, 300 Teaser, Kingsman The Golden Circle, Godzilla, In Bruges, Madeline's Madeline, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rocknrolla, The Lighthouse.

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

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

Rowan, Fraser, and Rob are joined by Kotaku's Gita Jackson to discuss their tenure as teachers at Garreg Mach Monastery. The gang talk about the really thougthful politics and characterizations that define Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Aside from that, is it a good tactics game? And finally, the gang gets into some serious spoilers about the game's shocking reveal midway through.

Something True 2.7: Christian & Christopher by Idle Thumbs

On our second day, Douglas Wilson introduces new team members Laura E. Hall and Jey Biddulph before comparing and contrasting their work at Meridian Adventure Co. in Portland with Alex and Shang Lun’s Earthrise One at PlayReactive in Melbourne. After that, things fall apart when we go to Ecurve, where Goldie, Stephanie, Shang Lun and Amani do a walkthrough of M&M'S® The Big Escape, a candy-coated room at Amaze Escape. Finally, the episode ends with vestigial puzzles, broken props, and the mysterious case of a closed escape room at 1 Utama.

Rob, Troy, and Bruce get together to discuss Mark Herman's epic wargame of the Peloponnesian Wars, Pericles. How does it capture the sweep of a vast historical subject that was only sometimes decided through military conquest?