A Green Mushroom

Hitman & Complex Game Systems In this episode: If there is anything in the world Void loves, it’s a complex system that he can learn and exploit in video games. When he found out about Hitman, he jumped in and loved it so much, he gifted it to Beej just so this episode could exist. While neither of us really likes the “murder” aspect of the game, it doesn’t feel like it’s really violence. We really do both see it as a puzzle game, and we tend to overlook the violence as it’s a means to solve the puzzles presented. Beej isn’t entirely into complex systems like Void. They have to serve a true gameplay purpose. Some games are complicated for the sake of being complicated and add nothing to the experience, but Hitman is the opposite of that. It feels as though you are learning skills and building on them as you progress. The game really helps you learn the systems through its very thorough tutorials--they don’t really feel much like tutorials, either. If you go through th...

YouTube In this episode: For a lot of people, YouTube pretty much is the internet. It’s the world’s second largest search engine (next to Google, obvs), so we wanted to discuss how we use YouTube, get some great channels out there to you guys, and also find out what you’re watching and how you use. What we actually watch on YouTube differs quite a bit. We initially thought it would be balanced, but it very much isn’t. Void uses YouTube as essentially a TV with all sorts of cool shows and creators he loves, while Beej sees it more as a novelty for one-off views. Beej doesn’t have much that he watches: VetRanch, Dr. PimplePopper, Woodworking for Mere Mortals, ObeseToBeast, RunSelfieRepeat, various funny puppy and kitty clips, CineFix, and catches up on clips of late-night shows or music videos. And really, that’s about it. Void, on the other hand, uses PLEX to stream YouTube to his TV where he follows various channels and creators like most people do their network sitcoms and...

Career Corner and Life Transitions In this episode: We are both going through pretty major life transitions right now, and we expect some of you are, too. We wanted to discuss how we’re coping with them so that maybe your life can get just a little easier. Mostly talking about new jobs because that’s the kind of transition we are both going through, but lots of things cause them, from health to marriage to kids to a hundred other things. What’s funny about us, though, is that we traded--Void went from freelancing into a full-time position, while Beej went from a full-time position to freelancing. Weird, right? It turns out that we have kind of the Geek to Geek Career Corner this episode inadvertently, so we talk about how we use our skills from other places to really move into something we love, and that even though we are changing, it’s still a career path that we both intended to take, and that some things happened by accident. The hardest parts of life transitions, thou...

Geeky Knick-Knacks and Toys to Life In this episode: Geeks love toys. And collecting things. It’s just kind of what we do. So we wanted to talk about that for a while, and really dig in deep about the kind of knick-knacks that we keep around us at all times, those that are special, and the kinds we just don’t care about. Void is very particular about what he collects, and Beej is now. He used to be a “gimme all the stuff” kind of person, while Void has always been more pragmatic about the kinds of collectibles he buys. But you folks could have probably guessed that. Knick-knacks don’t always have to be physical, either. We talk about collecting in games, such as Pokemon and MMO items, getting ultimate weapons in Final Fantasy and things like that. Do we finish games all the way and feel as though we need to get every single thing we can? And nowadays, there’s a huge surge in toys-to-life products. Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Amiibo, Lego Dimensions. All of these are huge...

I liked the Cosmere Collection a lot, but it's not going to be for most people.  The Cosmere is the greater interconnected universe that Brandon Sanderson has slowly been building in the background of a lot of his novels and novellas.  He's mentioned that they're all connected and only recently have some of the connections been mentioned in the text of his work. This is a short story collection all about that.  It's a series of short stories and novellas from his various worlds in the Cosmere. Some of them are brand new for this collection and some of them I've read before as stand-alones.  But, they're all good. If you've read the majority of Sanderson's work then you owe it to yourself to pick up this Cosmere Collection.  If you haven't read any of his work or only a few books then definitely skip this one for the moment and keep it in mind for later. But for the Sanderson fans out there, this one is great!

Mini Topic Grab Bag In this episode: We get so many comments and questions from you guys that we wanted to take this opportunity to address some of them. We take notes on them, so we put the ones together that we didn’t think we’d be able to pull together a full episode around. The topics we discuss this time are pretty varied, but we think you will enjoy them--mainly because you suggested them! It was so much fun recording this episode. So keep those comments and suggestions coming! What we talk about: The uncanny valley in movies, games, and other media General game design, including pet peeves, the best examples of single aspects, Bartle’s taxonomy, and the cost of games over the years. Digital copies vs physical copies of games Who’s our favorite Jedi? Products, games, and media that we just want to love, but don’t. Morality in roleplaying games. This turned into a very interesting discussion about gaming personalities and our real-life personalities. Thoughts ...

I'm going to be starting a new job soon and when life transitions happen something always has to give. So, there's probably going to be a writing slow down here on the blog.  I've been on the 5-7 post per week schedule for awhile and I'm going to let that go for the moment. I'll still be writing whenever I have the time and feel like it, but honestly... if there's anything I really want to discuss I'm going to make sure it makes it onto the podcast because that's something that won't have a slowdown.  Expect things you would normally see on here as short posts to now often end up on the Geek to Geek Podcast in the weekly geekery section instead. I'm still going to be posting the podcast on here every week and writing whenever I have the time and topic for it! Mostly, I'm not going anywhere, but the amount of writing I put out is probably going to take a hit for a while.  I just wanted to give a heads up!