On this episode, only three people could make it, but that's okay: they ramble a lot!
The ever topical Anand ponders about the possibilities that Project Café could bring to the table if the rumored specs are true, especially the touch screen integrated in the controller. Does he have a better answer than just checkers and solitaire? You will have to listen to the end to find out!
Guillaume, ever repentant, tries to be positive for once in his life and asks about the positive things gaming has brought YOU, the listener. He is immediately accused of being stealthily negative.
Finally kriswright, ever the newb, decides to simply talk about what he loves the most in the whole world: pinball. He does not, however, deign answer why he simply doesn't marry it. Kris also tackles the big question of the death of arcades and whether they could be brought back.
As usual, the music comes from Negative World's owner and dictator, Zero.
As usual, comment on the topics, the podcast, the guests, the host, etc. on Negative World! Or, be a weirdo and post them on Facebook or Twitter instead.
Yea, it's completely different from normal Clue. It's awesome. One person plays as the art thief, and the other people play as museum guards. First the guards have to strategically set up placement of the art, security cameras and door locks. Then the game starts and the thief is invisible and you plot out your movements on a little map, while the guards patrol and use motion sensors or cameras depending on their rolls. The thief can disable the cameras and even turn off the electricity. Anyway, the stuff you were talking about with connectivity reminded me of it.
Some suggestions for the podcast: It's too long. I think you should keep it to an hour, an hour and a half max. Also, I think 3 people is enough. That seems like the sweet spot for a broad sample of viewpoints and also making sure everyone gets a chance to speak. Also, theoretically it would lead to shorter podcasts since you'd only have 3 topics (although who knows with certain participants.
@Jargon The length was actually pretty organic this time, since we were a man down. I guess we just talked too much. What about the possibility of breaking a 2-hour biweekly podcast into 1-hour weekly segments?
That Clue variant sounds pretty fun. And very slightly like Guilty Party. (Castle Risk is fun, too!) I want to see what kind of clever, original riffs Nintendo can put on the 'screw the other guy' genre. The old Spy Vs. Spy game, where one person would set devious traps and the other would navigate them, would also work incredibly well. And you could play games like Mafia and Trivial Pursuit/Stage 2 without a moderator.
Even Rock, Paper, Scissors would be fun. And just imagine intense Prisoner's Dilemma-type situations in titles like Mario Party/Four Swords.
In the future, I'll just try to keep a tighter leash. I don't really have a problem with running a little long as long as people are interesting, though. In the future, I'll be on the look out when Anand goes off-topic, which is all the time.
The length was actually pretty organic this time, since we were a man down. I guess we just talked too much. What about the possibility of breaking a 2-hour biweekly podcast into 1-hour weekly segments?
Are you volunteering to edit the podcast and put it online?
Hey, tangents are key to keeping a conversation alive!
But it's pretty hard to fully discuss a topic in less than 20-30 minutes. Roundtables kind of need a certain amount of length to be thorough.
Anyway, the segment approach is kind of interesting, I think. Anime World Order does that sometimes. They break one monthly episode into small digestible chunks. It always leaves you wanting more, but a lot of people (like GameWizard) prefer the long-form podcast, so...
As far as editing, I might've considered it, but your '7-hour' figure kind of freaked me out.
But that's just because I *am* a freak, who loves to edit out the awkward pauses (not many in this one) or the talking-over-each-other-no-you-go-ahead (quite a bit of that this time).
If it were just a question of adding the intro and transition music, and putting the episode online, probably wouldn't take more than an hour.
Also, it's probably closer to 4 hours. I dunno, I waste a lot of time while doing it.
Yeah, the talking-over-each-other thing is definitely a problem on Skype. I wonder if there's a way to avoid it. Maybe long-time podcasters signal each other somehow, like we tried the first time? Or maybe they just don't cut each other off.
@Zero But, ideally, we'd get listeners who weren't part of the board yet, right? The podcast should still probably try to cover the issue completely, and then we can still argue about it and get more in-depth in these threads.
@Guillaume Recording separately would definitely help. Then you could just cut one person's voice when people are talking over each other. Greg probably just multitracks the whole thing, so that he can edit all four people simultaneously.
Yeah, Player One has a different kind of spacing. More laid back, with some occasional dead air.
As far as on-topic-ness, though, the Negative World podcast is kind of an intense, cerebral format. It's technically the same as Bitmob, but doesn't ours go a lot deeper? I think a bit of goofiness is necessary to keep the casual listener from being overwhelmed.
No, it's just the format. Most podcasts are largely recent game impressions and news, maybe with some letters and the occasional roundtable. Ours is all roundtables. And I feel like our topics are generally more analytical than Bitmob's, which are often something like, "What's your favorite gaming memory?" I enjoy the more in-depth kind of stuff, but two hours of discussion about game mechanics might be overwhelming for the casual gamer who, you know, likes Super Mario Bros.
If those kind of people listen, I dunno.
Plus, I've always felt that podcasts succeed less because of their content and more because of their humor and the rapport of the hosts.
Mustache HAS been calling for more light-hearted games discussion. You guys may have a point. I suppose I might try to make sure to have at least one fluff topic per episode.
I think I'd agree about the "intense, cerebral format". The format actually reminds me of those Sunday morning political shows - not the heinous "everybody shouts at once" ones, but definitely like the old Tim Russert-style roundtables where you have new people every week who might talk cordially about anything (and who are expected to be knowledgeable about everything that's brought up).
It's a good format, I think. Whether or not it's a good fit for Negative World - and I literally have no opinion on that, since I'm still getting the hang of the place - I think it's a good format for a podcast on gaming.
Politically Incorrect, huh? Well, I nominate Anand for the Bill Maher role. But to do it right, you're going to need at least one or two space cases there to talk about how the lizard men probed their anuses for copies of Duke Nukem 3D.
