Idle Thumbs

This week on Twin Peaks, things are either moving into position as the finale looms, or they are poignantly coming to an end. One Cooper hears a name he hasn't heard in 25 years, and the other Cooper finally asks about Judy, while Margaret Lanterman says a devastating goodbye, Ed and Norma finally get together and Nadine digs herself out of the shit. We're very near the end!

In this fine installment of Idle Weekend, we get really excited about (GOTY) Prey, the finest damned immersive sim this side of the solar system. Rob has finished it, and we spoil the hell out of the ending. We also talk about fun sleepover games: the games of our younger years that we enjoyed on an all-night basis with buddies. It's a very happy episode of idle Weekend!

Prey Spoilers!

D&D, Donkey Kong Country, Perfect Dark, Sonic 3, Prey, BioShock 2, Kingsmen: The Secret Service, The Dark Knight Rises, Jane the Virgin, WWE, Lucha Libre, Dunkirk, Atomic Blonde, On the Move (autobiography by Oliver Sacks)

In honor of the Mooch, we go through our gaming torrid affairs: games we had a very brief, very intense love affair with. Sometimes, these things just don't work out.

Discussed: Kingdom, No Man's Sky, Empire: Total War, Mass Effect 3, What Remains of Edith Finch, Ruse, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Twin Peaks Rewatch 49: The Return, Part 14 by Idle Thumbs

Survival: it's what separates people from animals. How far we've come from punching a tree until it explodes into logs that we can craft into workbenches. What began as humble topiary assault spread through time, Asia, and eventually into strategy games. This week, Rowan, Critical Distance's Zach Alexander, and Troy "Surely I can trade my encyclopedic knowledge of show tunes for food" Goodfellow get together to talk about survival strategy games. From half-RPGs to city builders, game devs like cramming a food clock into any game orifice they can find and the result are normal strategy games with the added fun of starvation and disease.

Rimworld, Banished, Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, Rogue, Nethack, Skyrim, FTL, Sunless Sea, Minecraft, Spelunky, S.O.S, Survival Kits, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, Rebuild, Atom Zombie Smasher, Impressions Games, SimCity, The Settlers, Children of the Nile, Majesty, Tropico, Aven Colony, The Sims, Baldur's Gate, Crusader Kings 2, Fallout Shelter

In this episode, Soren interviews Steve Gaynor, co-founder of The Fullbright Company and best known for his work on BioShock 2, Minerva’s Den, and Gone Home. They discuss whether audio diaries need to make sense, why the Gone Home family is made up of barefoot vampires who hate showers, and why Fullbright made Tacoma.

Games discussed: Minerva’s Den, Bioshock Infinite, Gone Home, Tacoma, Sleep No More, Firewatch, Her Story

This week Rob, Rowan, Obsidian's Josh Sawyer, and Troy "I told you, these leeches are medicinal" Goodfellow discuss Overhype Studios' Battle Brothers. It's been a while since the panel has been smitten with a game, but Battle Brothers seems to win everyone over with its smart tactical turn based combat. Taking a break from elaborate spells, this low-fantasy setting has your archers are melee combatants slugging it out in the mud and snow against brigands orcs.

Important If True 25: The Fresno Experiment by Idle Thumbs

Twin Peaks Rewatch 48: The Return, Part 13 by Idle Thumbs

Troy returns from vacation just as Fraser prepares to sail the wine-dark Aegean. But they pause long enough to talk about Kingdoms and Castles with Rob, a fun little medieval tower-defnse-city-builder that everyone wishes were just a little bit... deeper. But can Kingdoms and Castles' appeal be separated from its simplicity and shallowness?