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thatpinguino

Just posted the first entry in my look at the 33 dreams of Lost Odyssey's Thousand Years of Dreams here http://www.giantbomb.com/f...

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My GBCER7 Plans are Varied and Dumb

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Hello everyone,

As you've no doubt seen, the seventh Giantbomb Community Endurance Run is a scant two weeks away and our events and prizes are being announced fairly regularly. With that in mind, I thought I'd put up a quick blog post to let people know what I'm up to for the event and since @zombiepie's announcement went so well.

On Friday after UPF I'm going to be competing with my friend Billy in our second Blindfolded Brouhaha (it's the name until we come up with a better one. This is a gaming contest wherein we are both blindfolded, an unknown competitive game is put in front of us on the versus screen, and then we remove our blindfolds and compete in a best 2 out of 3 in whatever game it is. Last year we unfortunately skewed way too far towards Street Fighter and Billy picked Ryu like a coward every single time. By violating the spirit of randomness this event is supposed to capture, Billy was able to eek out a victory in the overall contest. This year will be different. The games will be weirder. The controllers will be odder. And the languages may not be English. All I know is that I'm going to be ready for game time.

On Saturday at 10 AM Billy and I will be competing in a video game race unlike any other. Billy will be completing Bastion as quickly as possible; however, he will randomly select his weapons throughout the game via a weapon wheel. He will also be forced to turn on difficulty modifiers based on how much money he raises.

If you could do me a solid and crap up his game, that would be really great.

Now given that he's playing a fairly short game, you might think that I'm also soft. That I want to play some short game with a dumb gimmick built around it. No. I'm going to be playing a long game with a dumb gimmick built around it.

Behold the Weapon Wheel
Behold the Weapon Wheel

For my half of the race, I will be playing Final Fantasy V. However, I will be completing a Four Job Fiesta run. This means that of the 20+ character classes in FFV, I will be restricted to four. And since I am participating in a fiesta, I thought the only appropriate way to pick those jobs would be via piñatas. Each of the four crystals in FFV represent an element: Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth. Likewise, each piñata represents an elemental crystal. The Buzz Lightyear piñata represents the wind crystal since Buzz Lightyear can fly. Also he's in a space ship and that has to fly through the air until it reaches space. The Jake and the Neverland Pirates piñata represents the water crystal since pirate ships float on water. I was contemplating getting a Spongebob or a Little Mermaid piñata, but the pirate ship looked cooler. The Red Hot Chili Pepper represents the fire crystal since it is spicy. Fire was a real tough piñata to find. It was between a chili pepper and a hot rod. I went against my instincts and avoided the pun. That just leaves the earth crystal, which is represented by The Rock. Because of course it is.

Buzz = Wind, Pirates = Water, Pepper = Fire, The Rock = Earth
Buzz = Wind, Pirates = Water, Pepper = Fire, The Rock = Earth

Each of these piñatas will be filled with thematically appropriate candy (green Airheads for wind, blue chocolate coins doubloons for water, Atomic Fireballs for fire, and Pop Rocks for earth) labeled with the jobs that I can unlock at each crystal. When the crystal shatters during my run, I will jump to a second camera that will be pointed at a tree outside. At that point, I will put on a blindfold, spin a few times, then drunkenly swing a stick until I cave in whatever hapless piñata is in my path. Once it's broken, the first candy I pick up shall be the job I'm allowed to use going forward. Barring any major mishaps this should be fun and safe for all.

Now, you can help me out on my journey a little bit. For every $250 I raise, I will be allowed one re-roll on a job. This is an attempt to mitigate some of the absolutely heinous jobs like Berzerker and Thief that can really mess up my run. They aren't terrible jobs in general, just in a Four Job Fiesta when you're trying to go fast.

So if you want to help me out, You can send your donations here.

On Sunday morning at 7AM, I will be playing Kirby's Nightmare in Dreamland because I deserve nice things in my life.

Maybe we do a Digimon raising contest? Or track our Digimon over time? I don't know.
Maybe we do a Digimon raising contest? Or track our Digimon over time? I don't know.

Then at 2PM on Sunday I'll be playing Super Smash Bros. with some friends, with a catch. One of my friends is a retired SSB4 semi-pro who goes by the name of Tohfoo. Some friends and I are going to be testing his might in something I like to call the Super Smash Bros Kumite. Tohfoo will take on challengers of increasing skill in increasingly daunting matches until he is finally defeated. This means that we will likely start in 1-1 matches on relatively normal maps. By the end it might be an items on, 3-1 battle on Poke' Floats. We can only hope.

I'm likely going to do something else on Sunday, but I'm not sure what as of yet. I'm also trying to figure out how to incorporate Gen 1 Digimon into the event.

If all of this nonsense sounds fun to you, you can tune in to my twitch stream (thatpinguino) on Explosiveruns.com from May 5th-7th.

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Deep Listens: Life is Strange- Part 2

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode Gino, Billy, Pete and Noelle discuss episodes 3-4 of Life is Strange. We discuss a whole lot of spoilers, discover that Billy is a game-theory sociopath with a taste for blood, and that no one seems to think very highly of Frank. Can't get into much more without spoiling the game, but jump on the Life is Strange train and listen along!

Deep Listens: Life is Strange- Part 2

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Deep Listens: Life is Strange- Part One

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete are joined by Gino's sister Noelle to discuss Life is Strange. Part one only covers the events of Life is Strange's first two episodes. We dive into the mechanics, major story points, and the themes of the first two episodes of Life is Strange. Noelle also lends her psychology expertise to help add context to some of the mental health issues present in the game.

Episode 41: Life is Strange- Part One

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Deep Interview: Talking Wums with the Creators of Wuppo

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode of Deep Listens, Pete and Gino sit down with Lars Korendijk and Thomas de Waard of Knuist & Perzik about their new game, Wuppo. In this interview we cover how Thomas and Lars met, got into game design, and founded their gaming company. We then discuss some of the nuts and bolts that make up Wuppo's gameplay, including some of their sources of inspiration (Grand Theft Auto comes up, believe it or not). After that we take a trip to spoiler town and go over some of the more intricate elements of Wuppo's story, including how they created the races in the game and some of the late-game story revelations. We wrap things up with a quick round of rapid fire questions about everything from theme parks to trains.

You can follow Knuist & Perzik at http://wuppogame.com and https://twitter.com/knuistperzik.

Deep Interview: Talking Wums with the Creators of Wuppo

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Deep Listens: Nonverbal Storytelling in Hyper Light Drifter... and Shotguns

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Hyper Light Drifter and all of the game's cool design choices. We cover the game's dash mechanics, it's sweet guns, and it's leveling system. We then focus in on the game's story and how it manages to communicate so much information without dialog. Pete and Billy wrap up the show by discussing the game's hidden language and how much Pete hates cyphers.

Episode 40: Nonverbal Storytelling in Hyper Light Drifter... and Shotguns

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Deep Listens: Wuppo is So Dang Cute!

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Wuppo, a whimsical platformer from the Netherlands. We cover the game's endearing charm, nonsense nouns, ridiculous story, and tight action. There is a surprisingly long discussion about vomit apocalypses in this podcast and I'm not going to tell you why.

Episode 39: Wuppo is So Dang Cute!

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Deep Listens: Listen to the Magic: Aether Revolt

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode we are joined by Devin to discuss the latest Magic the Gathering set, Aether Revolt. We discuss the latest Standard bannings, Aether Revolt's new mechanics, and some of our favorite cards from the new set.

Listen to the Magic: Aether Revolt

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Deep Listens: Jade Empire Makes Me Question Why Status Effects Exist

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode Chris "ZombiePie" -REDACTED- finally has his revenge for Gino forcing him to play so much Final Fantasy by making the crew play Jade Empire. We discuss the game's many technical problems, it's broken combat system, it's potential cultural insensitivity, and it's lackluster story. We are the last of our kind, cursed with a terrible burden.

Episode 38: Jade Empire Makes Me Question Why Status Effects Exist

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Deep Listens: Game of the Year 2016

The only game nominated in every category.
The only game nominated in every category.

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode we crown our games of 2016 with such categories as: Game of Our Year 2016, Game of the Year 2016, Best Comedy, Best Drama, Best Action/Adventure, Best Culturally Inspired Game, Best Character, Best Soundtrack, Prettiest Game, Best Performance/Voice Acting, Best Mechanic, Worst Story, Best Twist, Billy's Grindfather Award, Gino's Platypus Award for Game That Should Not Be, and the John Paul Sartre Memorial Award for Game That Best Expresses the Ultimate Futility of the Human Condition (aka Pete's award).

Game of the Year 2016

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Deep Listens: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 has the Sickest Kickflips

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Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, butcher skater lingo, and generally act like shoobies. We cover everything from the level design, to who the target audience was for this game, to the crazy character creator. We wrap up by discussing the game's "sick" soundtrack. If I need to hear "When World's Collide" again I'm going to explode.

Episode 37: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 has the Sickest Kickflips

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