Diecast – Twenty Sided

Check it out! Dynamo Dream is out! Mess Effect is out! Issac’s old computer is out. BioMutant is out! It’s Memorial Day in the US, which means school is out. Elliot Page is out. Gas prices are out[rageous]. This episode of the Diecast is out! My patience with hand-holdy games is out.

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Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast345

Link (YouTube)

Show notes:

00:00 Issac has a new PC

Here is his new processor:

• CPU speed is “1600 GHz”. Is that a typo? Shouldn’t that be 1.6GHz?
• Processor count is 2? So this is two processors in one? How does that work? Below it says “6 cores”. Does that mean each processor gets 3 cores, or what?
• It says Frequency: 3.66Hz precision boost. WTF is a precision boost, and why is it measured in hertz?
• The processor speed – 3.2GHz – is the last item listed. In the old days that was the first and only thing anyone cared about. Now it’s sort of a footnote to the thermal solution.

I’m not suggesting that this listing is wrong or bad. I’m just saying that I’m so far out of the loop that it’s all nonsense to me. This is why I’ve always hated shopping for hardware. It takes a long time to educate yourself on what the numbers mean and which ones are important. And even once you’ve done the homework, there’s always the anxiety that you’re making some newbie-level mistake and getting ripped off. This stuff ain’t cheap!

And then three years later when I need to upgrade again, I’ll find out all the numbers and specs have changed and I have to start over. The numbers don’t just go up over time. They get redefined, moved to a new scale, combined with other numbers, or are deprecated in favor of other numbers.

08:01 Dynamo Dream is out!

Link (YouTube)

14:26 Mess Effect is out!

BUY MY BOOK.

25:20 BioMutant is Weird

Here is the Day[9] stream of BioMutant I discussed on the show.

42:48 Mailbag: No Singleplayer WoW

Dear 13Window and Paul,

“Game at the bottom” design where most of the real gameplay happens in your cooldown-based ability bar has been extremely popular since at least World of Warcraft, but it seems to be almost exclusive to the realm of MMOs. No one making a singleplayer RPG says to themselves “People really like World of Warcraft, so let’s use that as the basis for our combat engine.” Is there a whole cottage industry of singleplayer WoW clones that I haven’t found, or is that genre really nonexistent and if so, what does it tell us about game design that only MMOs use that style?

Ninety-Three

46:33 Mailbag: KOTOR Remake

Dear Diecast,

So apparently Aspyr is now remaking KotOR? Could be cool. I wish there were some screenshots or something to show the proposed style of the remake.

I realize this is about a month old at this point, but I didn’t see it until now.

Jennifer Snow

50:43 Mailbag: Favorite Adventure Game Moments

Dear Diecast,

Could you share some of your favorite adventure game moments?
Mine is the showdown with Death in King’s Quest VI. Please take the time to watch it online if you are unfamiliar. It is only a minute or two long It combines good writing, good voice-work, and beautiful art.

Wishing you all the best,
Bobbert

Here is an example of Gary Owens and his golden voice, which made Space Quest IV and Space Quest VI such a treat.

But the real magic was Secret of Monkey Island. Like I said on the show, that game was packed with brilliant ideas. If I had to list my Top 5 Adventure Game Moments, 4 of them would probably be from that one game.