Idle Thumbs

Twin Peaks Rewatch 13: The Orchid's Curse by Idle Thumbs

Fraser is joined by Jon Bolding, Dia Lacina, and Philippa Warr to discuss Animal Crossing: New Horizons, from the ways it connects to the city builder genre to the oddities of the game's premise.

Rob is joined by Cameron Kunzelman and Ethan Gach to return to the world of Frostpunk before the frost as the panel considers the game's latest DLC, The Last Autumn. In some ways it's an expansion the reveals some of the worst traits of Frostpunk, but in some other ways it reinvents and reimagines the game as a trickier and more credible management game.

Working from home is the new normal for the trailer industry during the coronavirus pandemic. We, and how it's affected our own work, and the industry. We also discuss the brilliantly cut trailer for season 3 of Killing Eve. Trailers Discussed: Killing Eve Season 3, Kong: Skull Island. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

This week we are going all the way back to 1994 to discuss Master of Magic. MoM, though not quite as popular as its bovine counterpart, was a very forward-thinking game. It offered many levels of customization not yet seen in gaming and inspired classic modern series like Dominions and Age of Wonders. Listen in as Rowan Kaiser, Jon Bolding, and Troy "Do you like what I've done with my hobbit hole?" Goodfellow discuss Master of Magic, sci-fi vs fantasy, and why generic magic isn't necessarily a bad thing.

What makes an A24 trailer an A24 trailer? From Hereditary to The Green Knight these trailers frequently get held up as an example of restraint and confidence, so we discuss why that might be… Trailers Discussed: The Green Knight, Skin, Hereditary, Midsommar, First Cow, Waves, The Kill Team, Green Room, Saint Maud, In Fabric, A Ghost Story, The Disaster Artist, Under the Silver Lake, Laggies, Under the Skin, Swiss Army Man. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Not every novel must be Inifinite Jest, not every RTS game must be Starcraft 2. Sure, sometimes you need to hold your copy of Starcraft 2 with the cover facing out so people at the coffee shop KNOW you're playing Starcraft 2, but sometimes you just want to play a quick game of something and get out. This week, Rob and Cameron Kunzelman discuss three RTS games the can be played in less time than it takes to listen to this episode. So once you are done loudly asking if the barista has a second bookmark you can borrow for the footnotes, take a listen to our discussion on Circle Empires, Escape Dead Earth, and Death Crown.

Trailer editing hacks and tips are the topic if this week's episode. Anything and everything which saves us a bit of time here and there, and the little tricks unique to a trailer editor's job. Some include tips for sound editing, eye-trace, project management and loads of other geeky tips which editors will love! Derek and Ric also discuss the Instagram account taking the trailer industry by storm, and the trailers for The Invisible Man. Trailers Discussed: The Invisible Man Trailer 1, The Invisible Man Trailer 2, Sucker Punch Teaser Links: RedbandGreenband Instagram, Derek’s YouTube tutorials, Derek’s Avid Transition button feature request. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

In this episode, Soren and Leyla Johnson interview Creative Director Michał Drozdowski and Art Director Przemysław Marszał of 11 Bit Studios, best known for their work on This War Of Mine and Frostpunk. They discuss why This War of Mine does not judge the player and why Frostpunk does. Games discussed: Anomaly, Anomaly: Korea, Anomaly 2, Funky Smugglers, Sleepwalker’s Journey, This War of Mine, Frostpunk

Rob, Brian "Chef Lu Bu" Smawley, Rowan, and T.J. discuss the Mandate of Heaven expansion for Total War: Three Kingdoms. Brian has been radicalized the populist vision of the Yellow Turbans and feels like only Zhang Jue has put in the work to lead China to a glorious new age. Rob and T.J., meanwhile, feel that incremental reform is the way to go. Rowan is out for themselves, but is also starting to wonder if that old Total War campaign inertia might not be settling in.

Time is money! It's the biggest TV Spot event of the year, and Derek and Ric are breaking down all the big game spots including F9, Sonic, Top Gun Maverick and Minions. They also talk about what makes TV Spots a unique thing to create. Trailers Discussed: Sonic the Hedgehog, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Twilight Zone, Minions: The Rise of Gru, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, Top Gun: Maverick, Black Widow, Marvel Studios Disney+, Never Say Die, The Invisible Man, A Quiet Place Part II, F9: Fast and Furious 9. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Self referential meta trailers are an art unto themselves in movie and game trailers. What makes these trailers so much fun? When are they the most effectively used? And how long did it take for the trailer industry to start referencing how formulaic they were being? Trailers Discussed: Comedian, 6 Underground Whisper Trailer, Jumanji the Next Level ASMR Trailer, Inception Acapella Re-dub, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, BattleBlock Theater Steam Trailer, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists UK Trailer, The Stanley Parable Raphael Trailer, Muppets Most Wanted, Toys, Miracle on 34th st (1947) Trailer 1 Trailer 2, The Birds, Psycho, Real Life, Mother, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Gone in 60 Seconds, Gemini Man, Deadpool 2, Detective Pikachu, Free Guy, Mighty No. 9 Masterclass Trailer, Kingsman the Golden Circle. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Rob, T.J., Rowan, and Fraser gather to consider the last ten years in strategy games. There is a stark division about what happened to the RTS, as well as how the concept of a game being "finished" mostly disappeared. Then Rob tries to wrap up the show and it goes for another hour as everyone tries to choose their favorite genre game from the last ten years.

Making a trailer for a sequel requires a different approach than something which is entirely new. We discuss what some of those approaches are for that difficult second launch. Along those lines, we dive into the trailer for A Quiet Place: Part II. Trailers Discussed: A Quiet Place: Part II, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Magic Mike XXL, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, No Time To Die, Grown Ups 2, Half Life: Alyx, Thor: Ragnarok, Cloverfield, It: Chapter 2, Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Happy Death Day 2 U, Frozen 2, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Rowan, T.J., Jon, and Rob look back at 2019 and the games that most delighted or dismayed them.

Season 1 of Every Game in This City is over...but that doesn't mean Kuala Lumpur is the last city where we'll try and play every game! In this short conclusion, Stephanie, Patrick, and Doug look back one last time before setting the stage for Season 2 where eight game makers, curators, and researchers are meeting up in Shanghai for a week to try and watch every game at the International Dota 2 Championships!

It's Christmas at the Plantagenets as Rob and Troy watch the superb Lion in Winter and the less superb Becket. What do these movies have to say about history and politics, and is any of it related to historical fact? How good is Hepburn? What is O'Toole doing across these two films?

Jon and Rob welcome back Paul Dean to discuss Julian Gollop's and Snapshot Games' Phoenix Point, which tries to blend some of the old-school systemic realism of the original X-COM games with the ease of play of newer tactics games. It's all going well until the gang realize the AI plays like a zombie... and this isn't a zombie game.

Our favorite trailers from 2019, personal works of the year and trailers of the decade! Trailers Discussed: Kerbal Space Program 2, Astroneer Release Trailer, Wilmot's Warehouse, The Last of Us: Remastered - From the Beginning, My Friend Pedro Full Throttle Trailer, Knives Out, Waves, Joker, IT: Chapter 2 Teaser, Bombshell, CATS, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Mulan Trailers 1 & 2, The Lighthouse Trailer 1 & 2, Love, Death and Robots, Wonder Woman 1984, John Wick Parabellum, Ghostbusters Afterlife, Ghostbusters (2016), Detective Pikachu Leak, 6 Underground (The Process - Aviation Gin, Samsung QLED, Explore Italy), Midsommer (Bear in a Cage, Couples Therapy), Jurassic World Battle at Big Rock, Katana Zero Therapy Session Trailer, A Star is Born, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Hereditary, Mad Max Fury Road Teaser & Trailer, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Social Network, Inception, The Wolf of Wall Street, Kong: Skull Island, The Handmaiden, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Suicide Squad, Man of Steel. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Sixteen months after leaving Malaysia, the team reunites to reminisce, reflect, and record one final episode of Every Game in This City! Beaming in from Australia, Sri Lanka, The United States, and Malaysia, we takes turns updating one another on new projects and new play experiences that occurred over the past year. Laura E. Hall leads the discussion as we remember our favorite moments, some lessons learned, a few things we missed, and start to think about what we want to do next! Is there another game in another city we’ve set our sights on for the new year?

In this episode, Soren interviews game designer Alex Hutchinson, Creative Director at Typhoon Studios and best known for his work on Spore, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Far Cry 4. They discuss how they both would have screwed up SimCity, how working at Ubisoft is like Brewster’s Millions, and what happened with Spore. Games discussed: Pepper 2, Sensible Soccer, SimCity, The Urbz, The Sims 2, Spore, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Assassin’s Creed 3, Far Cry 4, Journey to the Savage Planet

Rob and Troy are joined by Kotaku's Luke Plunkett to discuss Unity of Command 2, the long-awaited sequel to on of Three Moves Ahead's favorite wargames. How does the new setting change the game, and what's with all these new buttons?

Sound design for trailers is a unique skill all its own. We discuss everything from rises to bass drops and Henry Cavill reloading his fists. You'll never listen to trailers in the same way again. Ric also dives deep into the moment to moment sound design of the new Black Widow Trailer. Trailers Discussed or Clipped: London Has Fallen, Crank, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Fountain, The Matrix, Battleship Trailer 2, The Bourne Supremacy, Black Widow, The Fate of the Furious, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible Fallout, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Dark Knight, Antlers. Links: Trailer Music Weekly, Score a Score, Montage MX, Robert Etoll, Boom Library, Big Fish Audio Blockbuster Trailer, Big Fish Cinematic Sound Design, Video Copilot Motionpulse, Bing Bang Boom. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

T.J. and Fraser are joined by Bruno Dias (@NotBrunoAgain) to talk about Planet Zoo, Frontier's spiritual successor to zoo tycoon. Animals are great, but is managing everything around keeping them happy? Why are there 30-50 feral hogs on my trade screen? Zoo-ne in to find out!

In this episode Derek and Ric are talking good trailers for bad movies. Also, everyone's favourite blue hedgehog is back to break the internet again and so we dive into Trailer 2 for Sonic... Trailers Discussed: Sonic the Hedgehog, Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, Ultraviolet, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Prometheus Teaser Trailer, Silent Hill, Godzilla: King of the Monsters Trailer 1, Godzilla: King of the Monsters Trailer 2, Godzilla: King of the Monsters Final Trailer. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Troy, Jon, and Rob have been to The Nam and deep in "The Shit" this week as they play Serious Sim's narrative wargame, Radio Commander. To what extent is Radio Commander an actual wargame versus a cleverly disguised RTS choose-your-own-adventure? Does the distinction matter? What are the game's politics, and how do they affect Radio Commander's portrayal of contemporary politics? Most confoundingly, the crew wrestle with whether this is a good game that people should play, or merely an interesting experiment.

It’s the beginning of the end and we’re back to our regularly scheduled program after our surprise escape pod experience last episode! This time, Stephanie Boluk does a double take and finally gets a chance to debrief with the team and reflect a little bit on everything that has happened over the course of 7 days and 50 escape rooms (including new experiences we just had at the original Breakout in Avenue K and back at Lost in KL.) In our final interlude, Patrick, Amani, and Chad get tangled up in Mr. Oswald’s Greatest Show, a creepy marionette masterpiece where the players become the puppets and half the team tries out Exit: The Abandoned Cabin in a midnight escaping session. As the Kuala Lumpur trip comes to an end, we’re all starting to feel the Escape Room Effect.

What makes a great game trailer? In this episode Derek and Ric discuss making game trailers, capturing footage, storytelling and how best to represent an interactive experience... Trailers Discussed: Firewatch, BioShock Infinite E3 Demo, Dante's Inferno. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Rob and Troy play the new, 3D Close Combat: The Bloody First and see how it measures up to the series' history.

Boo! Instead of sitting down to tape a new episode, this week the recording studio is haunted by the ghosts of escape rooms past! Shang Lun and Patrick trick and treat the team to a series of sweet and spooky surprises based on our experiences of playing over 50 escape rooms together. From crunching on rock candy in Unlucky Mummy to sneaking peanut M&M’s in Classroom Murder to drinking Dutch Lady chocolate milk in Annabelle, the team will have to come together one last time escape Every Game in This City. Trapped within an escape room about escape rooms inside a podcast about escape rooms—will we ever find our way out of this mise-en-escape?

In this episode, Soren interviews game developer Adam Saltsman, who co-founded indie publisher Finji and is best known for his work on Gravity Hook, Canabalt, Hundreds, Capsule, and Overland. They discuss how Mario speed runs are the original infinite runners, why Canabalt is in 6 shades of grey, and when does Permadeath make sense for a game. Games discussed: Canabalt, Captain Forever, Jetpack Joyride, Alone, Hundreds, Portico, Overland, 868-HACK, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2

Horror trailers and the challenges of scaring people out of their seats and into theaters are the this week's topic. We talk to trailer producer Amanda Pulver and editor Matthew Merenda about their unique challenges. Trailers Discussed: Lights Out, It Follows, White Noise, Paranormal Activity, The Blair Witch Project, Hereditary, Antlers, The Strangers, Alien, The Evil Dead, A Quiet Place, The Conjuring, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Strangers, It Comes at Night, Mother, It: Chapter 1 If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

What if we decided to escape differently? What if we escaped without talking, without touching, or without even seeing the room? Instead of hitting the wall at Codefactory in Sunway Putra, what if we tried to scale it? This week Chad Toprak chats about game development and community building in Malaysia with our final guest, <a href="https://twitter.com/yingtastic">LeeYing Foo</a>, a game artist and UX designer at <a href="https://kaigangames.com/">Kaigan Games</a> as well as the co-organizer of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wigout.msia/">WiGout Malaysia</a>, a hangout space for women and underrepresented folks in KL. After that we head to Codefactory at Sunway Putra before Goldie, Stephanie, Patrick, and Doug break down Classroom Murder, the high school mystery room that inspired us to start designing our own quirky constraints, traitor mechanics, and teen drama! Then the team takes turns playing the same escape room but each time with different voluntary rules: an escape room where no one could speak (except Doug, who was taking notes) and an escape room where no one could touch anything (except LeeYing, who was blindfolded)!

In this episode, Soren interviews game developer Adam Saltsman, who co-founded indie publisher Finji and is best known for his work on Gravity Hook, Canabalt, Hundreds, Capsule, and Overland. They discuss how Cave Story showed him that he could make games on his own, why he thought he worked with the guy who invented Boggle, and his many failed attempts to join the video games industry. Games discussed: Super Mario Bros. 2, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Cave Story, Tower Blocks, Boggle, Gravity Hook, ThrustBurst

Assistant editors are essential to the trailer industry. We discuss the many things we learned on the job. What an assistant editor does, their day to day tasks, and how many varieties of tea they need to keep track of. We also discuss the trailers for 6 Underground, The Gentlemen and Free Guy. Trailers Discussed: 6 Underground, The Gentlemen, Free Guy, 1917 Featurette, Russian Ark, They Shall Not Grow Old, Boyhood, The King's Man. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Rob, Rowan, and Sean welcome Jeff Green to discuss what might be the greatest year in gaming. Looking down the release slate for that year, it was obviously stacked with brilliant games like Alpha Centauri, Freespace 2, and Jagged Alliance 2 (to name just a few). But did people know it was special at the time? And did anyone realize how fleeting that moment would prove to be, just before Microsoft entered the console wars and began to bridge the gap between console and PC?

Locked in a bathroom, trapped in a museum, handcuffed together, and wearing clown makeup, after five full days of escaping, the team finally hits a wall at the Fifthroom in MyTOWN. Patrick LeMieux tries to hold it together while introducing our second special guest, Clarissa Lee, a research fellow at Sunway University, who had the dubious pleasure of joining us for her first (and our 30th) escape room. During the interlude, we listen in on Doug and Patrick’s personal audio diaries recorded in a food court immediately after each of their teams had escaped yet another Egyptian-themed room, the Unlucky Mummy. Then we laugh, we cry, we try and read fingerprints off dirty bandages, while slowly losing a sense of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what escape rooms even are.

Teaser trailers are some of the most fun to edit. We discuss what we think makes an effective teaser trailer, and how they differ from full trailers which reveal more of the story. We also talk about a LOT of our favorite teasers and how they successfully tease the audience using entirely different philosophies and editing techniques. We also touch on the teasers for Tenet and Birds of Prey which the studios released exclusively in theaters, and the new Jurassic World short film which acts as a teaser trailer itself. Trailers Discussed: Tenet, Birds of Prey, Battle at Big Rock (Jurassic World Short), Alien, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Godzilla (1998) Museum, Godzilla (1998) - Fishing, Terminator 2, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings BTS teaser, Lord of the Rings Teaser, Cloverfield, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Extinction, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Monsters Inc., Monsters Inc Charades, The Incredibles, Battleship, Inception, Layer Cake, Back to the Future, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Battle: Los Angeles, Toys, Transformers, The Addams Family, Where the Wild Things Are, The Exorcist, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Rebel Assault II, Dead Island. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Rob, TJ, Ian Boudreau, and US Gamer editor Mike Williams discuss the very pleasant surprise that is Age of Wonders: Planetfall. From initial skepticism over the fantasy series' pivot to science fiction, the gang are slowly won over by Planetfall's novel solutions to expansion and city management, diplomacy with minor factions, and glorious tactical combat.

With the whole cast assembled, Goldie Bartlett introduces our first special guest, Teddy Dief, who helped develop Hyper Light Drifter, co-founded Glitch City, and hosts his own podcast on the Idle Thumbs Network, Playscape LA. Teddy joins the team at Nu Sentral to explore the cinematic worlds and role-playing systems of the escape rooms at Breakout Nu. Then Stephanie, Jey, Shang Lun, and Doug peel off to get sweet and salty about the blend of story and puzzle in “Materia Medica,” a Chinese medicine-themed escape room. Clearly feeling the effects of four full days of escaping, this episode culminates in a feverish jam session where we brainstorm dozens of escape room ideas.

What inspires trailer editors? This time on the Cutdown we dive into the trailers for Bad Boys For Life and Joker, and talk about finding inspiration in unlikely places, and how to keep your work fresh. Trailers Discussed: Bad Boys For Life, Bad Boys II Teaser, Bad Boys II Trailer, Joker, Star Trek, Waves, Prometheus, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Blindspotting, Little Children, Madeline’s Madeline, Hard Candy, The Social Network, Alien, Dr. Strangelove If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Nicole Clark joins Rowan and Rob to talk about Klei's Oxygen Not Included and its punishing model of offworld colonizaiton.Learn how everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and how well the game communicates excruciating detail about why your colony is dying.

Laura E. Hall hosts day three where we meet our final team member, Chad Toprak, and talk about global games from Melbourne to Malaysia. Afterwards Patrick joins Laura and Chad to chat about what happens when you lock ten people in “The Tomb of Life and Death,” an asymmetric, architectural escape room. Then the team gets physical with the cramped crawls in Mission-Q and creepy dolls at Lost in KL, two of the most intense escape room parlors we’ve ever encountered yet.

Something True 2.8: Odyssée by Idle Thumbs

Motion graphics can give a trailer a unique look and feel which defines the marketing of a movie. We discuss everything from The Blob to The Da Vinci Code, what graphics add to the trailer process, and talk about a number of our favorite examples. We also speak to professional motion graphics artist Hal Forsstrom about where the industry is going and how to break in. Trailers Discussed: Morgan, Bombshell, Marriage Story (What I Love About Nicole), Marriage Story (What I Love About Charlie), Man of Steel (Jonathan Kent), Man of Steel (Jor-El), Thor Ragnarok Teaser, Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad, Mad Max Fury Road, The Blob, West Side Story, A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, Star Trek First Contact Teaser, The Da Vinci Code, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Avengers Endgame Teaser, The Matrix, 300 Teaser, Kingsman The Golden Circle, Godzilla, In Bruges, Madeline's Madeline, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rocknrolla, The Lighthouse. If you have questions or comments please send them to [email protected]. Join us in the Idle Forums to discuss this week's episode!

Rowan, Fraser, and Rob are joined by Kotaku's Gita Jackson to discuss their tenure as teachers at Garreg Mach Monastery. The gang talk about the really thougthful politics and characterizations that define Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Aside from that, is it a good tactics game? And finally, the gang gets into some serious spoilers about the game's shocking reveal midway through.

Something True 2.7: Christian & Christopher by Idle Thumbs

On our second day, Douglas Wilson introduces new team members Laura E. Hall and Jey Biddulph before comparing and contrasting their work at Meridian Adventure Co. in Portland with Alex and Shang Lun’s Earthrise One at PlayReactive in Melbourne. After that, things fall apart when we go to Ecurve, where Goldie, Stephanie, Shang Lun and Amani do a walkthrough of M&M'S® The Big Escape, a candy-coated room at Amaze Escape. Finally, the episode ends with vestigial puzzles, broken props, and the mysterious case of a closed escape room at 1 Utama.

Rob, Troy, and Bruce get together to discuss Mark Herman's epic wargame of the Peloponnesian Wars, Pericles. How does it capture the sweep of a vast historical subject that was only sometimes decided through military conquest?

Something True 2.6: L'Arme X by Idle Thumbs