TSM Episode 286: Bup’s Turtle Farm

Not pictured: The farm itself, Bup, and his army of scantily-clad female guards.

Bup’s Turtle Farm

The Starlight Megaphone
Download: Produced 2014.08.24

The first Lusi vs. Bup arrives in a feature-length podcast crammed chock-full of culture: Literature, Music, and Intelligent Discourse all feature prominently, as does a double helping of Cricket live-commentated from the last over of the T20 Blast final!

* * * * * * *

Reading Raffle
1. During the reading raffle, make a donation to Lusipurr.com in the amount of $5 US or a multiple thereof, noting ‘RAFFLE’ in the donation.
2. For every $5 so donated in a single donation, donators will receive one entry into the raffle.
3. Multiple entries and donations are permitted.
4. The reading raffle is open to everyone aged 18 and up, staff members inclusive.
5. The reading raffle closes at midnight, US Eastern Time, on the Monday prior to the final reading from the book being raffled.
6. After the final reading from the book on the podcast, Lusipurr will draw at random a winner from all of the raffle entries.
7. Winners will be contacted by e-mail.
8. A valid mailing address is required from the winner. If the winner does not respond within thirty days, another drawing will take place to select a new winner (and so on).
9. Entrants who donate more than $5 will ALSO be entered into the drawing at year’s-end for a free, new game on Amazon or Steam valued at up to $60 US.
10. Non-staff raffle entrants who do not win any other 2014 raffles or drawings will be entered into two runner-up drawings for Lusipurr’s copies of A Confederacy of Dunces and Candide.

Good luck!

30 Comments

  1. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.25 at 17:03 | Permalink

    I note that DiceLieutenantCommander’s gratis write-up done out of the goodness of his heart is UNACCEPTABLY LATE.

    We expect–nay, we DEMAND–better performance!

  2. DiceAdmiral
    Posted 2014.08.25 at 17:51 | Permalink

    Info Blast Arrives Precisely When It Means To

    This week’s panel
    SiliconNoob
    Mel
    Iliya
    Lusipurr

    Donators
    Cumulative total record holder: Imitanis
    Single Donation record holder: Imitanis

    Donators eligible for drawing:
    Greg H.
    John V.
    Matthew D.
    John M.
    Brett W.
    Aram Z.
    Peter V.
    Billy B.
    Les E.
    Martin B.
    Jeremy V.
    Simon H.

    cisum reliops
    That was pretty great.

    Lusi V. Bup
    GreenLight
    RPG Maker can include a massive amount of work from the developer. There are some very hardcore re-writes to create some really need stuff in RPG Maker. That being said, most games from that system are pretty terrible.

    Early Access
    I think my feelings on Early Access are best summed up by Extra Credits:
    The Problem With Unfinished Games

    Kickstarter
    I’ve kickstarted one thing. (I know shame on me) and it was a Board Game. The backing price included a ton of cool stuff and was about the price of buying said things afterwards, so I think it wasn’t a bad way to go monetarily speaking. I realize that it’s a gamble though, so if the project fails I expect to get nothing. I don’t think that I’d back a video game as that seems much more likely to fail.

    I was hoping for more disagreement. That was pretty disappointing. Maybe generate an idea list of things you know that you disagree about beforehand?

    Hype and Go Seek
    “Journey into a universal world of good vs evil. Raise your sword or magic to conquer an empire torn with vengeance. The 3D battlefields with their many views will place you in life or death situations. Prepare your wit and strength to battle foes from unknown forces.”
    Answer

    Shadow Gate

    Bears win T20 Blast

    Gamasutra: Ageism in the game industry

    Kenneth McCulloch charges

    Reddit rebrand Net Neutrality
    I admit that there are awful people on Reddit. I choose not to subscribe to those subreddits and actively choose more community and content driven subreddits like
    /r/Corgi and /r/BoardGames.
    For the uninformed: What is Reddit?

    Sony no idea
    “You’re never too far away from a fuckup.” -Mel
    Awesome.

    Ouya China

    XBone Leaks

    Konami shuts down Hayter Metal Gear
    You guys covered my opinion of this pretty well.

    Ubisoft Thinks Smash Bros will Save Wii U
    They must not be very confident about their assessment though as they’ve cancelled most of their WiiU development.

    Marty McDonald Gets Stock Shares Restored
    Bungie comes off like massive assholes in this situation.

    Imitanis Literature Corner
    The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
    I just got the watch-dog joke. He’s literally a watch and a dog. Ugh.
    The spelling Bee sounds like a Dalek.
    This has been a very entertaining read. I’m looking forward to the fall read by I’d be just as happy listening to this weekly as well.

    Imitanis Gaming Moment
    I should have a PAX D&D run down next week, so fret-not Info-Blastioids, D&D coverage will return shortly.

    This week I played Star Realms. This game is a Deck Building type game. What this means is that every player starts with a deck (usually 10 cards) composed of the exact same cards. On a turn, players will use the cards they draw from their deck to do things like buy more cards from a general supply in the middle or effect other players. When a player buys a card it goes into their discard pile with the other cards that were drawn that turn. Essentially, players are attempting to build an efficient engine to defeat their opponent by buying cards that mesh well together to make big plays. To that effect there are cards that allow a player to remove cards from their deck to take out the weaker cards to that the more powerful come up more often. Dominion is the most common example of this style of game.

    Typically, there are a set number of cards in the middle available for purchase, and these can be chosen before the game starts to provide different scenarios and change up the gameplay. Common criticisms of Deck-Builder games are that they often lack theme-mechanics agreement and they lack player interaction.

    Star Realms is a great deck building game. It changes up the formula in that every card in the game may be available during the game. There will be 5 cards available to buy at any given time and any time someone buys one another is cycled in. This keeps every turn interesting as there’s no knowing turn-to-turn what will be available to buy. I think that Star Realms also defeats the two common criticisms that I mentioned above. Every card is either a ship, which may be used once and then must cycle through the deck again (recharging) or a base, which stays out in play to be used every turn until destroyed. The victory condition for this game is to defeat your opponent by attacking their authority points. This provides direct conflict and forces players to pay attention to other player’s turns, which is often not necessary in Deck-Building games. Star Realms is also $15 MSRP which is a fantastic price if you can get it, which is difficult as it is still in short demand. If this sounds like something you’d like I recommend contacting your FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) and seeing if they can reserve one for you as you’re likely to pay 2x as much online at time of Blast.
    Super Fun game! Recommended as long as you don’t mind shuffling cards often as all Deck-Building games require that and this is no exception. Top of it’s genre.

    I’ll report next week at anything neat I see at PAX Prime, but I’m not allowed to cover PAX Dev for press and this might sort of qualify so I won’t risk it.
    Game-On

    Twitch

    Event Calendar

  3. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.25 at 18:08 | Permalink

    @DiceWizard:
    Info Blast Arrives Precisely When It Means To
    Yer a wizard, ‘arry.

    cisum reliops
    The staff never listen to the podcast, so they’re really going to miss out this week.

    I was hoping for more disagreement. That was pretty disappointing. Maybe generate an idea list of things you know that you disagree about beforehand?
    The asshead deliberately agrees with me about everything just to frustrate my intentions. I have a plan to foil him next week, though.

    HEY, WHERE’S THE REFERENCE TO THE LITTLE CLIP I PLAYED FROM THE END OF TARTINI’S VIOLIN CONCERTO IN GM!?

    I admit that there are awful people on Reddit. I choose not to subscribe to those subreddits…
    …[I] actively choose subreddits like /r/Corgi

    ;;-.-;;

    “You’re never too far away from a fuckup.” -Mel
    This guy is solid gold. Honestly. You only get to hear a tiny bit of it, which is a shame.

    Bungie comes off like massive assholes in this situation.
    Only because they are. That’s all.

    The spelling Bee sounds like a Dalek.
    I was actually thinking something more like the FLUDD from Super Mario Sunshine, but sure! And FIVE Cabinet Ministers, ALL with different voices, which I had to invent on the fly. It’s like Norton Juster WANTED to defy me!

    This week I played Star Realms.
    This sounds promising!

    This game is a Deck Building type game.
    Nevermind. Deck-builder games lack theme-mechanics agreement and player interaction.

    Common criticisms of Deck-Builder games are that they often lack theme-mechanics agreement and they lack player interaction.
    Is there an echo in here? Next you’re gonna say that Star Realms is a great! deck-building game.

    Star Realms is a great deck building game.
    Called it!

    The victory condition for this game is to defeat your opponent by attacking their authority points.
    Surely this will instill in the players, over the long term, a disrespect for authority which ultimately would undermine the minimal control I have over my staff members lives and hence FORBIDDEN FORBIDDEN FORBIDDEN.

    Star Realms is also $15 MSRP
    MANUFACTURER’S SUGGESTED RETAIL PRICE!

    I recommend contacting your FLGS
    Furious… lesbian… gay… smansgender…?

    (Friendly Local Game Store)
    Oh.

    I’m not allowed to cover PAX Dev for press and this might sort of qualify
    Hahahahaha!! Hahaha!!!

  4. DiceAdmiral
    Posted 2014.08.25 at 19:21 | Permalink

    Whoops
    “still in short demand.”
    I meant short supply, or high demand. Short demand implies the exact opposite of what I meant. Derp.

  5. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.25 at 20:18 | Permalink

    @DiceWizard: In the time it has taken me to write this comment, I could have fixed your post instead.

  6. The Legendary Oltan
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 07:50 | Permalink

    Are you sure it’s pronounced iCARus? Both MerriamWebster and Oxford pronounce it how Mel wanted to pronounce it.

  7. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 10:02 | Permalink

    @Zoltan: Prevailing pronunciation isn’t correct. Icarus is a Greek name (καρος – Íkaros) transferred through the Latin, and is rightly pronounced as I read it. I would be more indulgent about prevailing pronunciation if it were a loan word, but it’s a proper name.

    The other way is akin to pronouncing Deux Freres as “Duke’s Freers”. Perfectly legitimate in the late 18th century, but obviously wrong if one knows that the name is, in fact, French and not English.

    I suppose this is more a litmus test to see who has taken classes in elementary Greek than anything else!

  8. Ethan 'Ethos' Pipher
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 13:16 | Permalink

    Bravely Default is certainly a wonderful starting point. A large number of great decisions were made in the development of that game. I still think its writing, story, and voice-acting are decidedly high school, but the game as a whole is a good omen in my books.

  9. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 13:17 | Permalink

    @Ethos: My estimation exactly.

  10. DiceAdmiral
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 15:06 | Permalink

    @Lusi: I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that I should have asked you to edit it or are illustrating that you could have but didn’t, but I’m leaning towards the later.

  11. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 15:07 | Permalink

    CORRECT!

  12. Savante
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 23:06 | Permalink

    Heya and yo. Loved the Lusi “vs” Bup segment. No jokes. I wish this was a regular segment on all podcasts.

    I love fartcasts, I love chaos; this segment was refreshing despite by taste for anarchy. Agreed on all points.

    Lusi, volume issues on your end. You’re too low/soft, at times. Unless you start screaming. At times it sounds like you’re 20ft away from the microphone, at others you’re preaching testament and the volume needs to go down. Depends on how much the others on the cast get you riled; point is your volume is all over the place lately and I have no qualms with anyone elses.

  13. Savante
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 23:11 | Permalink

    *despite MY taste for anarchy — ^

  14. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 23:13 | Permalink

    @Savante: Will look into it. Part of it may be that (after getting the boom and trying to adjust to using it) we’ve been employing Dynamic Compression to level things out.

    Before I go any further: I lowered my microphone volume by 25% this week. This was a one-off. It was too loud before, but it is now a little too quiet. We’ll get it right.

    Otherwise: It’s a bit too complicated to explain in a comment at midnight, but one of the things the compressor does is apply a massive de-amplification to certain moments of audio, and it also applies a massive amplification to others. The idea is to ‘level’ everything out, but one of the downsides of using it is that there are areas where otherwise normal audio becomes significantly over- or under-amped.

    The theory behind it is that having the entire podcast be level, with areas of unlevel, is better than having the entire thing be unlevel with areas of level audio.

    I add that I’ve been listening to it myself and I haven’t found it problematic at all. In fact, the whole thing seems to be much improved. So, I might suggest that you check your own playback settings and make sure that they’re not trying to do what we’re doing as well, since that could magnify the areas of unlevel audio (i.e. if you have an equaliser applied, or if you have your player set to ‘level’ audio in some way).

    Of course, I also mentally discount issues that I know are ‘one off’ problems that I fix in the next podcast. So, you may be hearing a succession of those things and taking them all to be an ongoing issue, whereas I know what causes each of them and consequently discount them as I fix them.

    But, I’ll pay a close eye to the audio on next week’s podcast, just to be sure!

  15. Savante
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 23:32 | Permalink

    Cheers Lusi, appreciate the response.

  16. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.26 at 23:49 | Permalink

    See, we do listen to constructive commentary. Sometimes. When the fit takes us.

  17. The Legendary Oltan
    Posted 2014.08.27 at 00:18 | Permalink

    Oh, OK. Then I shall now pronounce it like you do but it’s going to take forever for me to get used to it. Now if I could get just ONE person to pronounce Blazblue correctly, I’d be so happy.

  18. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.27 at 01:05 | Permalink

    Pronounced: WOE-full-ee un-BAAHL-ehns’d

  19. Andrew 'Mel' Melcon
    Posted 2014.08.28 at 10:47 | Permalink

    Why is BlazBlue not pronounced “Blaze Blue”?

    Also, I had forgotten I even said that about Sony during the recording. It’s almost like reading another person’s quote. The other person and I agree wholeheartedly!

  20. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.28 at 14:18 | Permalink

    @Mel: This is why you should listen to the podcast even when you are on it. One hears things one forgot one said, and one also hears things that one didn’t catch the first time around.

  21. Julian 'SiliconNooB' Taylor
    Posted 2014.08.28 at 19:33 | Permalink

    Why is BlazBlue not pronounced “Blaze Blue”?

    Um… aren’t you answering your own question?

  22. The Legendary Oltan
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 01:38 | Permalink

    Because, Mel, it’s a made up word and the guy who made it up decided that it’s pronounced Blay Blue. Silent Z like in rendezvous. I looked it up because nobody was sure if it was pronounced Blaze or Blazz. To my surprise both of them were wrong. What do you say, Mel? Will you be the very first person to join me in pronouncing it correctly? Come on. It’ll be fun!

  23. Julian 'SiliconNooB' Taylor
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 02:19 | Permalink

    Really? I thought it would be pronounced with a hard Z sound…

  24. Julian 'SiliconNooB' Taylor
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 02:21 | Permalink

    I’m just going to keep pronouncing it how it looks.

  25. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 02:28 | Permalink

    Rendezvous is French, and the Z is ‘silent’ only because it is part of the ‘ez’ combination, which is prounced ‘ay’ as in ‘day’.

    BlazBlue is ‘az’ not ‘ez’, and it is presumably not French, either. The guy is a dolt. This is what comes from eating too much ghoti–you know, pronounced fish. GH as in enough, O as in women, and TI as in nation.

  26. The Legendary Oltan
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 03:14 | Permalink

    OK. So the silent Z doesn’t make sense.

    Here’s the official site.
    http://blazblue.jp/

    Where it says ブレイブルー Which is pronounced Blay Blue. I don’t think it’s that ridiculous since the pronunciation is not THAT far from the spelling.

  27. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 13:25 | Permalink

    I don’t know that I would take Japanese approximations of English to be anything like how titles should be pronounced in English.

    Henceforth you are The Legendary Oltan.

  28. Julian 'SiliconNooB' Taylor
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 16:51 | Permalink

    Nice work Oltan! ;)

  29. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.29 at 17:44 | Permalink

    ADVANCE NOTICE FOR OUR DILIGENT READERS:

    Have you enjoyed the Lusipurr.com Literature Readings? We have an end-of-the-year special event for you!

    From now on, during readings, people can buy a Lusipurr.com raffle entry for a $5 donation. Do this by making a $5 donation and including “RAFFLE” in the ‘notes’ on the donation.

    At the end of the reading, a winner will be drawn from all the raffle entries. This lucky person will receive THE copy of the text from which Lusipurr has been reading, complete with a personalised, hand-written dedication from Lusipurr to the winner.

    Reading Raffle
    1. During the reading raffle, make a donation to Lusipurr.com in the amount of $5 US or a multiple thereof, noting ‘RAFFLE’ in the donation.
    2. For every $5 so donated in a single donation, donators will receive one entry into the raffle.
    3. Multiple entries and donations are permitted.
    4. The reading raffle is open to everyone aged 18 and up, staff members inclusive.
    5. The reading raffle closes at midnight, US Eastern Time, on the Monday prior to the final reading from the book being raffled.
    6. After the final reading from the book on the podcast, Lusipurr will draw at random a winner from all of the raffle entries.
    7. Winners will be contacted by e-mail.
    8. A valid mailing address is required from the winner. If the winner does not respond within thirty days, another drawing will take place to select a new winner (and so on).
    9. Entrants who donate more than $5 will ALSO be entered into the drawing at year’s-end for a free, new game on Amazon or Steam valued at up to $60 US.

    HOW EASY IS THAT? But wait, THERE’S MORE!

    10. Non-staff raffle entrants who do not win any other 2014 raffles or drawings will be entered into two runner-up drawings for Lusipurr’s copies of A Confederacy of Dunces and Candide.

    I look forward to mailing out some books to YOU!

  30. Andrew 'Mel' Melcon
    Posted 2014.08.30 at 01:57 | Permalink

    I might have call to say BlazBlue the way the creator wanted if I played 2D fighting games more aside from Smash Bros. Now, is there even a reason it’s called BlazBlue? Is the name completely arbitrary too?