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Lords:
* Tim
* https://giantsquidstudios.com/
* Nathan
* https://twitter.com/MommysBestGames
* http://mommysbestgames.com/website_store/index.html
Topics:
* Are there any negatives to having an easy mode that takes the player through the entire game? Should the "best ending" be locked somehow in easy mode?
* Why are we drawn to art that updisturbs, depresses, or scares? (And yes, "catharsis" is a weak answer!)
* How Super Mario 35 (and maybe battle royales in general) solved the worst unsolvable problem of multiplayer
* John asks: "Licensing issues and content guidelines have led to a homogenized aesthetic on YouTube that leads to all produced-in-bulk videos for children having the same sound effects and music."
* What's different (better or worse) about playing games with kids? Do you play games with your kids?
* What sports would be more interesting with low/0 gravity? Or with higher gravity?
* Tim's vegan commune cooking disaster stories
Microtopics:
* Shoot 1-Up.
* Controlling all your spaceships at the same time.
* The big thing about Galaga.
* The forever scrolling timeline of new content that you're fed all the time.
* The funniest Boris Vallejo painting.
* Being bummed to find out that Boris Vallejo was looking at people and painting them rather than just imagining them.
* Name-dropping Tom of Finland.
* Staring at pink blobs all the time.
* Making sure you're not wearing your good socks because they're about to be blown off.
* Looping the game twice with no deaths and no bombs.
* Jamestown.
* Being forced to do something unpleasant to feel a sense of satisfaction when you are given what you want.
* Not supporting an easy mode as well as you should have because you assumed those people could just play co-op.
* Bringing in a playtester who has never used a mouse before.
* Not valuing your own fake accomplishments as much because other people accomplished the same fake accomplishments more easily.
* Save the Date, by Chris Cornell.
* Having to wake up to play Super Hard mode.
* The necessity of hand-tuning all the enemy AI in shoot em up difficulty levels.
* Psychoanalyzing the entire human race at once.
* People turning to media to experience strong emotions.
* Whether it's easier to elicit good or bad emotions in the viewer.
* The safety of seeing a horrible thing that will definitely never happen to you.
* Being unusually upset by the Boston Marathon bombing because you recently ran a marathon.
* Knowing that an album is going to fuck you up because it is too proximate, and choosing not to listen.
* A scary movie taking months to purge from your brain.
* The relief of when the demons show up.
* People lining up at a party to play That Dragon Cancer.
* How movies basically never hurt children.
* Wanting to know what's in the box but also knowing that what's in the box will ruin your life for months.
* How you lose half the time in multiplayer games.
* Super Mario 35.
* The various ways video games can make you feel like you're winning harder.
* Taking turns feeling good at video games.
* We Didn't Playtest This At All
* Everybody choosing a number and everybody who chose 5 being the winner.
* Trying to win at Scrabble based on style points.
* Coming up with as many secondary win conditions as possible so that everybody can win even if they lost.
* Choosing a safeword to indicate that it's time to switch topics.
* Making all your own opulently animated scenes.
* Playing games as a way to develop social relationships.
* Empowering your son to express himself even though he's making a shitty Pokemon deck.
* Finding non-combat activities to do with the Pokemon that are not very good at combat.
* Buying SNES Classic to play games with your son and then realizing that there are more worthwhile games to play than those that merely entertain.
* Games which give you value that you can take out into the world.
* Wanting to show your kid the good stuff so that they can have a better life than you did.
* Learning music theory by listening to Justin Bieber.
* Worrying that you'll pollute your kid's natural interests with your taste in video games.
* A very nice video game world for other people to explore.
* Staring at people and saying "papaya" until they're like "why do you keep saying papaya"
* Skateboarding in low gravity.
* Full contact basketball with trampolines.
* Immersion Blender Night.
* Immersion blended salad.
* Immersion blended vegan lasagna.
* Learning the hard way that flambe does not burn off that much of the alcohol.
* A gargantuan stock pot of chocolatey oatmeal that is far too salty for human consumption.
* Improvising around your cooking mistakes.
* Promising to talk about Paddington 2 next episode.
* Going to the Giant Squid web page and checking out Tim's bio.
* Barf-sealed copies of Pig Eat Ball.
