General Discussion [ Page 76 ]

Ghostbuster Brothers

Our favorite plumbers cross streams with the Ghostbusters in this incredibly-made fan film. I expected to be annoyed by this, truth be told, but was left grinning.

Signal Boost Ep. 2

I accidentally hit a Kickstarter theme this week. Unwritten, a clever rts; Homesick, a new survival adventure game; and Blade Symphony, a sword based fighter. Check it out.

Gabe Newell: Reflections of a Video Game Maker

Very cool talk Gabe Newell of Valve gave at The LBJ School of public affairs. 9 minutes in and HAD to share this!

What do you think about his thoughts on economics? Found it really interesting some artists have "real jobs" at big game studios but make more money selling hats in TF2. I agree with him, post-internet many corporations are changing for sure!

Next episode of WOFF! is all about game music!

http://a.tgcdn.net/images/products/zoom/a8f6_zelda_ocarina.jpg

Specifically old game music.

Have any stories, opinions, feedback on old video game music and sound? Last generation or before? Please share!

http://duckfeed.tv/contact/

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/30/2013 at 12:19am

Whoa? Thanks for sharing, starting to think about things now.

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 01/30/2013 at 12:35am

We'll read your stories and play your songs! We just want something substantial about how a piece of music or sound design affected you, contributed to the experience, reinforced the narrative, etc.

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/30/2013 at 12:38am

I think I can do that. Already had a few songs in mind for a bit now, so I just need to write it up.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 01/30/2013 at 12:52am

Rad, when do you need submissions by?

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 01/30/2013 at 02:16am

Thursday, 5pm PST! Thanks, guys!

Travis Admin wrote on 01/30/2013 at 02:24am

Do you want our stories here or through the contact form? Both? Either?

I have a thought.

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 01/30/2013 at 05:08pm

Contact form is easiest for us.

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/31/2013 at 04:06am

Ok submitted my stuff. 4 songs in total. Hard to nail it down to a few.

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 01/31/2013 at 05:09pm

Sweet, thanks Jon!

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/31/2013 at 05:15pm

No problem Gary, it was fun to do. Hard to break it down to a few and it was strange because I had to wrap my mind around "this isn't songs of the year." :D

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 01/31/2013 at 10:00pm

So far I just submitted one... it's a little obscure, but so rad. I'll see if I can think up anymore before today's deadline!

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/31/2013 at 10:14pm

I want to know what one, but I also want to hear the episode and be surprised... :D

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 01/31/2013 at 10:28pm

It's from a Genesis game! Which just made me think of Sonic the Hedgehog. The music in that game wasn't that memorable, but all the sound effects were! Collecting coins, jumping, busting through things/enemies... for some reasons those sounds make me nostalgic :)

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/04/2013 at 05:12pm

When will the episode drop?

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 02/04/2013 at 08:43pm

Thursday, listener response episode the following Thursday!

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 02/04/2013 at 08:53pm

Sweet :)

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Cheerful Ghost 1 Year Anniversary

1 year ago today I had a party at my house celebrating the launch of a new game site called Cheerful Ghost. The initial concept was born out of a few problems I had with gaming. I had a ton of games but no way to share that list with anyone. I also wanted to talk to awesome people about the games I loved but I couldn't find a place anywhere that made sense to do that. I also realized as I was online and read things about other games no place tied what everyone said about a game together. For instance, if I went to a game site it wasn't easy to view all the posts and information for a single game like Super Mario Brothers or Starcraft. I also didn't like gaming sites I... Read All 1 year ago today I had a party at my house celebrating the launch of a new game site called Cheerful Ghost. The initial concept was born out of a few problems I had with gaming. I had a ton of games but no way to share that list with anyone. I also wanted to talk to awesome people about the games I loved but I couldn't find a place anywhere that made sense to do that. I also realized as I was online and read things about other games no place tied what everyone said about a game together. For instance, if I went to a game site it wasn't easy to view all the posts and information for a single game like Super Mario Brothers or Starcraft. I also didn't like gaming sites I saw as no normal person seemed to matter much. Paid journalists were front and center as the focus of many sites and as such normal people were relegated to the comments section which are often lame areas to talk about games.

So starting with some simple ideas I started out to solve these problems I had. I started with a pen and paper and started drawing the site I wanted to use. I sketched out my ideas over a few weeks and showed it to my friends. After getting a good response to my drawings I spent mostly every second of my spare time over the next 4 months building the initial launch of Cheerful Ghost. I started with a few design goals but one was that the site HAD to work the same on phones, tablets and desktops. I hate using sites that suck on phones and tablets. I opened up the site for 2 week beta period and after that on January 28th I formally launched http://cheerfulghost.com.

Thinking back on what I launched with I am kind of embarrassed as the site you see now is much much better. Some say that if you don't launch a product a bit embarrassed you are launching too late. If you can imagine one thing that sucked at launch was that you couldn't see the current post stream! You had to click around twice to see peoples latest posts. After fixing that mistake I also added some new features like auto-magic adding of PSN & Steam games, a ton more post embeds, post titles, an entire visual site redesign and more.

As I look forward to the next year I have a bunch of stuff I want to do but my ultimate goal is to grow the Cheerful Ghost community. I want to thank everyone for being part of one of the most awesome parts of my life. Deciding to build Cheerful Ghost was a good idea and spending the time to make it what it is now has been totally worth it!

Geek Love: A New Geek Reality Web Series

Interesting new web series from IGN called Geek Love. The featured episode above covers Brittany as she takes part in "Sci-Fi Speed Dating" a new Comic Con staple. The show is interesting because it reminds me of some reality TV shows and doesn't wallow in being cynical or douchey.

The aforementioned episode features Brittany a well adjusted teacher trying to find love with someone who shares a similar love for gaming, movies and comic books.

I kind of am not entirely certain of the format or concept, but appreciate it being genuine. Seriously wondering your thoughts about Geek Love so please sound off in the comments!

ep 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ5iwGApwLM
ep 2:... Read All

Dat Firehose: Gun Commando, SC2 Preview & More

Ripstone recently released Gun Commando a retro flavored shooter for the Playstation Mobile Platform. Video featured above is seriously channeling some awesome Doom energy!

Blizzard recently dropped a really interesting preview of whats coming in Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. The post focuses a bit on multiplayer, the story and Zerg additions.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/heart-of-the-swarm-preview/

GoG recently released Neverwinter Nights 2 the complete pack. Obsidians take on this BioWare property currently has a 4.5 out 5 star rating on GoG.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/neverwinter_nights_2_complete

You can now download some really interesting ringtones for your... Read All

Magical Game Time Vol. 1

"Download the entire collection of Magical Game Time comics in one massive 139 page PDF for whatever you’re willing to pay! This PDF also includes unfinished comics, sketches, character drawings and pretty much every video game related comic that I’ve done to date."

I really appreciate the art of Zac Gorman because it really captures how I felt as a kid playing video games. His un-cynical take on that era of my life is really quite beautiful at times and is fairly unique in gaming culture.

Recently he released Magical Game Time Vol. 1 which is a collection of all the art on his site. The PDF starts at $1 so there is little reason not to pick it up!

... Read All

The new Xbox is going to be EPIC, people!

Cheerful Ghost has received an insider tip from an anonymous Microsoft employee with some new info about Redmond’s next console offering. According to our insider leak Microsoft is working on a new console called “Xbox.” While this may lead to some confusion considering it shares a name with Microsoft’s first console, it makes sense as a brand, as you’ll see below, with the plans Microsoft has for it.

Xbox is not only going to be a console but a platform for future gaming devices, such as the X Surface. This will be a new gaming tablet, not running on standard Windows 8 or RT, but on a new gaming focused OS that has the familiar Metro interface, but powerful enough for... Read All Cheerful Ghost has received an insider tip from an anonymous Microsoft employee with some new info about Redmond’s next console offering. According to our insider leak Microsoft is working on a new console called “Xbox.” While this may lead to some confusion considering it shares a name with Microsoft’s first console, it makes sense as a brand, as you’ll see below, with the plans Microsoft has for it.

Xbox is not only going to be a console but a platform for future gaming devices, such as the X Surface. This will be a new gaming tablet, not running on standard Windows 8 or RT, but on a new gaming focused OS that has the familiar Metro interface, but powerful enough for console-level games. This will allow for more incremental upgrades as new X devices are released, making the Xbox a hub for all your gaming hardware.

“Microsoft is really pulling out all the stops and this console will be its biggest release to date” our source went on the record to say. “The Xbox will allow you to play games, listen to music and do what you love so much better than anything that came before it.” And with a CPU spec increase of 3X it leaves little to the imagination that this will be something special.

I’m sure consumers will jump at the chance to buy new devices year after year to play all the games coming out, and this is a perfectly reasonable choice for Microsoft after their tablets and Windows 8 have been so poorly received. And the confusing naming convention seems like a bad idea on the surface (no pun intended), but I’m sure Microsoft knows what they’re doing!

We will keep checking in for more in the coming days where we will report everything that gets sent to our inboxes, totally raw and unfiltered-- we don’t worry about little things like vetting our sources! Want to share some info about the new PS4 that has the processing power of IBM’s Watson supercomputer and is controlled exclusively with Donkey Kong Jungle Beat bongos? We’re ready to believe you!

For more info: http://x-surface.tumblr.com/

Steam oddness on OS X 10.7.5

I seem to recall there are others here that use OS X, so thought I'd share this.

The other day the Steam client crashed on exit. whee! Actually not the first time, but it has engendered a new symptom. Unless I reboot my MacBook Pro before restarting the client I get a dialog stating it can load due to an instance already running. I've checked the process list and not such things is there, so I'm guessing that some resource isn't getting released now.

I've share some details with Steam, so hopefully some sort resolution will be found. I'm not really willing to reboot my laptop just so I can play
some game the has Steam insinuated into it.

Has any other OS X stumbled across... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 01/23/2013 at 07:53pm

Give this a shot. ClientRegistry.blob likes to get corrupted, and causes all kinds of fun issues.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7241-EYON-2343

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/24/2013 at 01:20am

I have had Steam problems on Mac. Mostly shutting it down and it yelling at me for some reason so I kill the app. Had a much better time with the Linux client all told.

MoonWyrd Supporter Post Author wrote on 01/26/2013 at 02:09am

@panickedthumb thanks for the suggestion. alas, it didn't make a difference. :( Hopefully Steam will get back to me soon.

MoonWyrd Supporter Post Author wrote on 02/02/2013 at 04:39pm

Well, Thursday I got a reply from Steam :
=========================================================================
Please exit Steam and go to the folder Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Steam

Delete all of the files in this folder except for SteamApps and Userdata.

Restart your computer.

Launch Steam and re-test the issue.

Note: This process will not affect your currently installed games.

Note: If you are using Lion please do the following to access your Steam folder:

1. Click "Go" in the menu bar
2. Click "Go to Folder..."
3. Type "~/Library/Application Support/Steam"
4. Click "Go"

This will take you directly to the folder.
=========================================================================

This seems to have fixed the problem, at least for now. I've run the Steam client several
times since and played Civ V a few time w/o the problem recurring. Thought I'd update
this in case someone else gets hit by this.

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/02/2013 at 06:05pm

Whoa nice, thanks! I might try this as I get crashes in Steam as well from time to time.

Travis Admin wrote on 02/02/2013 at 06:16pm

You'd think going in and deleting everything like that would be bad, but I guess it is smart enough to know what to download. Glad you got it working!

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