Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 09/22/2014

Yay, perfect timing for Destiny playing. Looking forward to hear about Swery's game as I haven't seen the quick look yet.

Swery talk, instantly the best show of the month.

No need to apple care your phone. If you bought it at launch go to the apple support page and look to the bottom of the page and it will say iPhone 5 battery replacement program. plug in your serial number and if it qualifies get a free new battery.

One of my friends used SwiftKey and he always said once you gave it a few weeks you'd never be able to go back to anything else. Thankfully my Android has Swype which I find pretty easy to use. It still is learning some of my word use and language preference but for the most part it knows what I'm going for.

More power to you Alex, I'm getting an iPhone 6 Plus too, but it's not showing up until October 21st! D:

The keyboard change is annoying at first but gets much better after a week or so when you ahve taught it most of your common words-that-aren't-words (lots of video game lingo or tech/internet stuff included here). The ease of being able to type whole sentences without lifting your finger is pretty great.

Been using Swiftkey for a long time on Android, never used the Swype feature. But i take the text prediction of this any day over the stock keyboard or that found on my iOS devices.

I like that it can actually learn to predict your typing, if you let it use your emails and sms or twitter as a recourse.

S W E R Y

The iPhone 5 had a sorta recall sometime soon my friend pointed out to me. If you have a phone you bought between sept 2012 and jan 2013 and of a specific model number Apple will replace your phone or the battery or something. I was thinking about doing that but then just said fuck it getting the 6.

Smfh Patrick is so biased.

Ghost Adventures is FANTASTIC television. It's FANTASTIC.

Early access and Kickstarter ARE NOT the same thing. Sorry, Patrick it just isn't. Not that I disagree with your notion to be wary, as being a consumer and being aware is always good advice.

Always makes me chuckle confusedly when people who use Iphones marvel at Swiftkey or Swype. Ios tap touching is infuriating

i have an LG G2 that can be had for super cheap i got it brand new on ebay for $215 it has a 3000mah battery that generally lasts 2 days for lighter users and will stand up to any power user for an entire day. I agree battery tech is still kinda shitty but there are shining examples to be found if you look out for it.

A project zomboid dev wrote a pretty interesting perspective on the space base thing.

http://theindiestone.com/binky/2014/09/21/alpha-funding-early-access-is-not-an-alternative/

http://theindiestone.com/binky/2014/09/22/my-response-to-some-responses-to-my-df-9-response/

I just have to wonder why Double Fine even put the game on early access, it seemed unlikely it would ever blow up into the success they needed it to be.

@alex

You can replace the iphone 5 battery for free still. I think...

It could be useful to have a backup phone, or a hand me down.

I think the main argument with Spacebase DF-9 is that they (project lead JP LeBreton, Double Fine, etc.) made claims that they did not, either by an inability to or a lack of desire to, end up fulfilling. With Hack N Slash, the end result might have been a bit bare bones (1.0 release, source code release, that's it, have fun guys) but Brandon Dillon and/or DF never came out and said they'd develop the game for as long as they did with SpaceBase. There were no assurances, implied or overt, that the game would keep being worked on.

From what I understand, SpaceBase is not nearly a finished game, or as finished a game as Hack N Slash. It had several bugs and issues that the people who supported the game had big problems with, and these were problems they were told would eventually be fixed and now will not be except by the community.

If you read the Steam forums (though this is generally a bad idea), there's a note from the SpaceBase project lead trying to explain why the project is ending, and the fans and customers are pissed and throwing his own words back into his face. And perhaps they're right in doing so. Steam offers none of the same reassurances that Kickstarter does or is planning to. If a KS fails, you get your money. If EA fails...MAYBE Steam will demand refunds for you, like with Darkout earlier this year. I don't think DF or JP are relishing the situation (JP's Twitter call to get a drink with someone, anyone, seems to be evidence enough) but Alex and Patrick have a point about having to build that trust again. People want to like Double Fine, and the transparency certainly helps with that.

My big problem with Space Base is that it went on sale just weeks before they announced that they'll abandon the project which just sounds like a last effort to make as much money as you can from this thing and then kill it off. I think Patrick is giving DF too much of a leeway by saying that they are so open.

Also, I've spoken to @alex on Twitter about this before, but I used to intern at the production company that makes Ghost Adventures (and NOT Ghost Hunters, of which many people visiting the offices would make the mistake of conflating the two). The best/worst thing about that show is that the hosts apparently are legit into ghosts. They believe in them, they really want to help the ghosts get on their ghostly ways and truly understand the ghosts, etc. The production company, at least the people I spoke to, thoroughly don't believe in ghosts or don't care because it's their job.

I really liked the potential of Spacebase and was hopeful for it's development, i even contributed to it on Steam. To hear that official development is canceled is disappointing but hopefully some intrepid modders can do something good with the source code.

So no fifa feedback is Alex going to do any quick look with small business man / italian midfield General cavravela (sp?)

Wow, was at the tail end of this scoops & the wolf, but I really do hope you are able to get Cosmo to do some videos for the site Patrick. Not only is he super talented, but he's also very good at explaining what he does, so it'd be a great addition, and well it'd be awesome for him and the speed running world to get more visibility.

Well the problem stems from the fact that the game was advertised as early alpha and there was an announcement from double fine just a month ago that the game wouldn't be quietly abandoned out of no where. Sadly it turned out that it was going to be loudly abandoned. Games just don't go from alpha 0.6 to 1.0 over night and it's just been a pile of poor decisions. It seems incredibly unlikely that no one had any idea about canceling the project a month ago when they made the post stating that it just seems like such a sleazy thing to do.

It's just hard to look at it from any other way.

I feel like this Space Base stuff directly mirrors my feelings on Starforge. It was the first and one of the few games I've kickstarted. In 2 years, the game feels about 60-70% done. 2 weeks ago, they just said the next update will be considered 1.0 and will be the last update depending on future sells. That announcement felt extraordinarily sudden and premature. I'm sure they just burned through their original funding, and now the game is mediocre to hell because of that. It's really disappointing considering I've been watching the development from day 1.

Does Patrick actually believes in ghost? That's... kind of disappointing. I always saw him as a fiercely logical dude from the way he dissect games and news so methodically.

Gonna use some of these writing tips presented in the questions. Its also good to know I'm not the only person who does stream of thought on the deadline writing when I can't get past a certain block.

I just wanna say that as someone that is sporadically really into speed running stuff, having Cosmo do something video related for GB would be rad.

Also, as someone with "pooping problems," to use Alex's and Patrick's fine words, I am OFFENDED that games continue to make fun of people like me! Not really.

A few misconceptions here and in the above post:

1) It's not 'Alpha 0.6', it's Alpha 6, literally the 6th major alpha.

2) True, things don't get polished overnight, but that's why they're taking about 2 months to go from Alpha 6 to 1.0. They're not denying that many of the features they wanted in aren't going to make it, but they're also not just kicking it out the door. They're adding a tutorial system, fixing a lot of bugs (yes, they are fixing bugs) and adding a goal-oriented system to encourage different styles of play in that time.

I think everyone is disappointed that the game didn't do well enough to get more development and reach its full potential, but I think also they're making the best of a bad situation and genuinely trying to put out the best game they can in the time they have. I've had fun with the little bit of DF9 I've played, and I'm looking forward to the 1.0 version for what it's worth.

Not the game of my dreams, maybe, but I can't say I feal cheated out of anything either. They were always very clear that dev would last as long as interest and therefore funding could be sustained. It was right at the top of their very first dev plan.

Only problem with SwiftKey / Swype / etc. is doing words with two letters in a row (hah) not sure how that works mechanically, but then you just type normally on that keyboard.

Vincenzo "l'architetto italiano" Caravella!!

I love how Patrick randomly wears a sweater hand knitted with the word "Chicago" on it, lol.

Ghost Adventures is NOT terrible Alex. It is a bunch of bro dudes yelling at ghosts. It's hilarious. How could you hate it. How.

Deadly Premonition is one of the greatest games ever.

Big Spacebase DF-9 fan here. Am not surprised by how its ending.

Also 900 people all playing DF9 at the same time sounds like alot to me. what were they expecting?

I don't think Double Fine can keep getting away with their goodwill because it's not like they've made a lot of modern classics recently. And I think it's kind of depressing that Patrick's trying to consider Early Access and Kickstarter the same thing and excuse this stuff when it's not excusable. You should never ever blame the consumer, especially when Double Fine's whole method of marketing is 'hey buddy, we're your buddy, buddy! give us some money so we can make games for our buddies.'

Absolutely do something with Cosmo, the SR community is enormous.

I can't recommend SwiftKey enough. I used to use Swype but after a few days with SwiftKey, I never looked back. I use it on 3 different Android devices now.

I find SwiftKey to be faster and have better correction and prediction than any other Android keyboard I've ever used. Not to mention it has cloud syncing of user dictionaries across devices now. Well worth the small price of admission.

D4 is awesomeness.

watching alex and vinny play that swery game made me want to turn on my xbone more then destiny did.

Hell yeah iPhone 6+ Alex!

After a day with it, I'm happy.

If I had to nitpick, the inefficient use of the screen space. They could make the keyboard a lot smaller and show more message for example. Unless I'm missing some toggle in the UI, jeez Apple, wth.

I'm someone i would consider "burned" with the early access support for spacebase. I will definitely be more wary the next time one of these rolls around. A big part of the fact I decided to back initially was based on the double fine name.

Would be really interested in the Comso Speedrun feature. I love the speedruns in AGDQ and he is a very skilled one for sure

It drives me up the wall when anyone describes a management game as, "it's like dwarf fortress." It's fucked up on multiple levels. First and foremost it adds the expectation that all of the games in the genre will be as complex as a game that's been in near continuous development for 13 years. It's like comparing Guild Wars to WoW. Sure, they're in the same genre but they aren't even remotely on the same scale. Second, it ignores those that came before. Games like Sim city and Rollercoaster Tycoon are never mentioned despite being better comparisons with more reasonable production expectations. I believe this is part of what killed Spacebase.

I've never had a phone whose battery stopped holding a charger after only a year or two. Patrick's theory about that just being "battery technology sucks" is completely off base. Battery technology sucking means that's supposed to happen after something like 5 years, not one. Either Patrick is getting unlucky and getting bum batteries or his usage pattern is really weird or iPhone batteries just suck (I've never owned one so I can't say).

I wish all of @Alex's reviews were like that one for The Wolf Among Us.

The more I hear about the costs in SF, the happier I am that places like Chicago are starting to grow as game development hubs. Similar thing with Vancouver... as much as I love this city... and while it pales to SF... it is a criminally expensive place to live in.

I don't want to keep spamming this, but since this is the actual video the comment was made, I think it should be mentioned at least that the "there were only 900 people playing Spacebase DF-9 at the same time at it's peak" should be contextualized a bit - 900 people is not any less than the average for something like this. There's more about that in this thread (not just my post, @cagliostro88 made some great comparisons to other Double Fine titles), basically - while we must keep in mind that peak players are not actually indicative of total sales - SpaceBase had more than four times higher peak player count than Hack 'N Slash, which Patrick brought up as a game people are more interested in, it's also slightly higher than Iron Brigade and Costume Quest, while certainly nowhere near the numbers of Broken Age, Psychonauts or Brütal Legend.

Thanks for answering my question guys!

As awesome as D4 seems, I'm still getting a PlayStation 4 in December instead of an Xbox One. Sorry, Swery...