I can also announce that the brilliant Sooz Kempner is one of our special guests on the night. I saw her recently at Steve McNeil's Video Game Game Show Show (which Larry, Gannon, Ashens and I will be appearing at next month), and aside from being incredibly funny, she's a massive games fan. Particularly of Sonic The Hedgehog. You can expect to see her take part in a certain Sonic-themed... something...
In other news... I hope you're all now subscribed to the Digi YouTube channel. If not, head over there immediately, as you won't want to miss this weekend's video... Trust me on this...
If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, please send your dank emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com
Given you and Mr Pubes’ (that name should be official now) promises about inserting things into various body cavities (remembering that the adage “anything is a dildo if you’re brave enough” can also be applied to butt plugs), I am certain that the chance of a medical emergency may be fairly high.
While I am not medically qualified, I am handy with a pen, and I am also fairly literate, so I am willing to be on standby to write to the ambulance service requesting they attend your shoot at their earliest convenience should something happen.
That is once I’ve stopped laughing, of course.
Paul
Looking at the 8 types of gamer I don’t think I’m any of them. I used to play games a lot more in my wasted youth, but these days I don’t have the attention span for a lot of the newer drawn out immersive experiences.
Perhaps in the 8/16/32/64 bit eras it was much easier (or limited by technology) to be plopped straight into the action without endless scene setting and tutorials; I’m probably missing out on a lot of the current-gen gems as these really put me off, bore me, and often I go play something else instead.
Of course we have exceptions, Resident Evil 2 and Mario Odyssey are fine examples, and I’ve plenty of time for arcady fighting games and sometimes fill 15 mins with the Star Trek table on Pinball Arcade (or whatever it’s called, what happened to pinball machines anyway?). But with limited gaming time, having to share the tv with Mr.J (the wife), and limited pennies, it’s maybe sad that I didn’t have the patience for Breath of the Wild or Red Dead 2 and sold them.
Oh and watching other gamers streaming? Must be something the Pee Di Poo crowd are into cuz it’s never interested me and I can’t see why anyone would want to either :-/
Mr.S
Wild BIFFO appeared!
I’ve been to see Pokémon Detective Pikachu and I thought I’d better write a review:
“It was alright.”
Most of the problems I had with the film were plot related so that means they must have done a convincing job of bringing the Pokémon to life. As for those plot problems, there were moments where things happened too conveniently, or with little justification, and I felt like that wouldn’t have been the case in a “grown ups” film. I’d need a second viewing to make sure, but I’m fairly certain none of the misdirection makes any sense.
Afterwards I was thinking about how I would have fixed some of the problems the film has, and I wondered why the people making it hadn’t done the same... Since you are a professional script writer and children’s script specialist I have a question:
When you are writing for children do you put less effort into it all making sense, is it more important to tell a good story/get the message across?
I should also say that my niece, who is 8, saw it the week before me. She really enjoyed it and didn’t mention any problems with the internal logic, she did however think the Mr Mime interrogation was “really weird” but I liked it because they set him on fire.
Snooooooooorlax!
Grembot
P.S. Sorry that seemed more negative than I actually felt about it. The film was funny and heartfelt, I think they concentrated more on gags and chemistry than plot which was probably the right choice.
CBBC, in particular, are absolutely red hot on the story stage of things, and we spend a long time getting the stories right before we go to script and start on jokes and that. If you're doing your job right, there's literally no difference writing for kids than there is writing for adults.
Well, obviously there is a bit, but the craft of it is almost exactly the same. WHICH IS WHY IT'S A SHAME WE GET PAID LESS THAN WRITERS IN GROWN-UP TELLY.
This is a public call for exhibitors at "Chunky Fringe", the free, thoroughly amateur shambles that will be taking place on the afternoon of Digitiser Live, the thoroughly professional shambles.
There will be more news for attendees later. For now, it's a room in which you can awkwardly approach strangers with some hopes of a shared interest, get directions to the toilet, and meet Chris "Super Page 58" Bell. The aircon might even work!
Details are below, and in brief, I would love to hear from absolutely any potential exhibitor or exhibitionist who would like to try entertaining and/or educating the early arrivals for the main event:
http://arbitraryfiles.com/events/cf19/index.html
Don't be shy now. You already know that the Digitiser crowd have extremely low standards, and I can assure you that the tiny, arty sub-crowd are all lovely and will support whatever you bring along, for however long you can stand the glare of public attention. Except that most people will be avoiding eye contact, at least until the bar opens.
David W.
Between this and the live show, going to be a very special day for the Digi community.
I saw this on the Instagram account of a guy I follow. Initially, I thought it was cool but as time went on I started to wonder if I'd hear Fat Sow's voice in my head saying: "You're like a kebab with shit on!" and thus any barbecue would be ruined.
Wayne Dearden
Use fake science to explain why gecko toes are sticky.
Thank you.
Bishop Firth
20) I am currently playing through the Metal Gear Solid series with my missus, because playing games with a loved one is one of my favourite things to do.
However, upon playing Metal Gear Solid 2, I am realising that it isn't just step-up graphics-wise, but also a step-up in gameplay complexity.
I mean, previously we only had to look out for guards around us really, now, we're having to look for guards above and below, not to mention having to manually aim with the tranquiliser gun, as a body shot just isn't enough to send the enemy to sleep immediately.
It is fun, but bloody frustrating.
Oh, a question, what kind of games do you find too complex to properly enjoy?
21) A question for yourself AND the audience … Is a game character breaking the fourth wall an instant "yay", an instant "nay", or somewhere in-between?
22) Is being credited on something you have worked on in the film and television industry as annoying to obtain as it can be in the games industry?
I ask this because during the recent unpacking I found an old list (we're talking 2007 - 2011) of games I worked on, and I was not credited on a single one, and I am not joking when I say the list is LONG.
23) I wanted to know if I am remember this correctly, but did you used to print a letter writer's full e-mail address alongside their letter when they sent e-mails to Digitiser in the Teletext days, and if so was it a Digitiser policy to do so or a Teletext one?
24) This was never actually meant to go past my initial batch of questions, I actually only numbered them originally to help with my own formatting, but when you labelled the first letter 50 Qs of Pepsiman I somewhat felt obliged, or enabled, and I am not entirely sure which, or if it is a mixture of the two (no joke there either, I genuinely do not know).
What I will say, is that there is a little bit of "childhood hero interacting with me" there, and a little bit "people are reading what I write, and not on that weird Twitter thing where people mostly go to pick fights with internet strangers" (and I am no innocent here by any means in stating that).
I guess this brings me to my question, and this goes out to the audience too, does anyone else have any "childhood heroes" in gaming?
Because I love kicking the hornet's nest, I am going to go on record and say Dave Perry was one of mine.
At this point because everyone on the internet told me I have to, I am obliged to mention "Super Mario 64, something something something, Bikini Babes in Video Games, something something something", and I am not allowed to mention that his commentary on GamesMaster was top-notch, as he knew what he was talking about (or so it seemed to me, the viewer), and the pairing in the commentary box with Dominik Diamond was a pairing on-par with J.R. and Jerry Lawler in WWF back in the day.
Oh no, most definitely cannot say that, I can hear the internet lynch mob already, that's it, time to be gone!
Have a lovely week and weekend everyone.
Cheers,
Pepsiman
21) That depends on the game and how it's used. Last weekend I finally got around to watching the whole of Fleabag, having initially been put off by the first couple of minutes of the first episode, and then not going back to it for months. It's genuinely masterful telly, but the way they break the fourth wall - and develop it in the second series - isn't just a gimmick; it's used to reveal something about the character. Genius. I can't think of any games that do it as well, but I did always like the bits in Metal Gear where the game sort of knowingly knew it was a game.
22) It's not difficult at all in TV and film. I mean, I'm a writer so if I wasn't credited for things I've written that'd be a bit weird.
23) Yes we did do that. It was early days of the Internet and email, and I don't think anybody realised the sorts of hassle that it could potentially lead to. Plus, people often emailed in without signing their actual names, so we had to put something...
24) It's weird to me that anybody would consider me a childhood hero, not least because my face never appeared anywhere, other than an issue of Super Control, and a couple of eps of Games Master in which I looked really weird.
Incidentally, Dave Perry sent me a DM recently with a screenshot of what I looked like back then, accompanied by one of those crying-with-laughter emojis.... which was nice of him... though to be fair he did follow it up by saying he thought I'd aged well.
In terms of my gaming heroes, I can only really think of Matthew Smith, partly because for a long time he was such a Syd Barrett-esque enigma. Like Syd Barrett, I think we were all a bit guilty of glamorising his disappearance from the industry...
Dear Biff of Fresh Air.
A threefold letter:
1, I was recently in London for training (and also to scope out travel/ hotel options for The Harrowing), and spent a fair bit of time 'down the tube'.
Being an outlander I was obviously just occupied with not falling over or breathing in any pearly germs, but most people were quite at ease with some sort of phone or tablet entertainment. Do you 'tube', and if so do you find it possible to play games (or any games in particular) whilst hurtling through the nether regions?
2. A quick recommendation - Frostpunk. Just started playing, early signs are good and it somehow combines elements from 3 of my big recent favourites (The Long Dark, Banished and 80 Days) in one.
3. On a lighter (shite-er) note, if it doesn't cause you to much copyright trauma I thought you might be interested in the recently unearthed original David Bowie lyrics for 'Sound & Vision'.
Following on from the previous years' 'Thin White Puke' period, inspired by his infamous milk, coke and peppers diet, Bowie demoed and ambitious concept piece called 'loo', as a counterpoint piece- the yin and yang of involuntary expulsions. Sadly the record company baulked, the concept was dropped and the original lyrics archived- until now:
Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the colour of my poo, when I'm not well.
Toilet blinds down all day, spare loos not too far away,
BLUE POO!
And I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of turquoise shitting.
Sifting all through my cyan poo.
A navy ring? I'm worried by all this turquoise shitting.
Don't you wonder some tiiiiimmmmeeeeeeeesssss, 'bout turquoise shitting?
It was, of course, a collaboration with Iggy Pop (Plop).
Have a lovely 'bank' holiday!
Voiced by Guides
2) I will check this out!
3) That's not true. None of that is true.
For those who are Broken Sword Fans you might be interested to know that Revolution has confirmed on twitter that a new game in this series is now in the works. Broken Sword V released a while back and now it looks like a new one is upon us heres the link to the tweet.
https://twitter.com/revbot/status/1131511091425677312
This is going to be good and i can not wait to see this be released.
Gamertag ( gaz be rotten)
356) From the point of view of consumer rights and the respect we are held in by games companies, are we better off now than 15 years ago?
357) While I do understand that demo discs, in the physical sense, are an anachronism, the concept of a demo, once so big, is almost irrelevant now. Is this actually a problem? If not the physical medium itself, do you miss demos?
358) Do you believe that streaming games will kill off remasters e.g. the recent Shadow of the Colossus remake?
359) Should loot boxes be illegal in the UK? If so, why? And if not, why not?
360) Computer Games funding on Kickstarter has seen another year-on-year decline. Coupled with the recent (relative) success of the Skyrim online multiplayer mod, do you think that it can be argued that the subscription model for games is more sustainable than the 'traditional' Kickstarter per-project model?
John Whyte
357) Weird you should ask this, because I've been playing a lot of demos of Oculus Quest games this week. I guess demos are still around in the form of betas now. I do miss getting cover disks, and the like, but
358) I don't see why remasters should be killed off by streaming. Do you mean in the sense that there'll be a Netflix-type service where all games are available for eternity?
359) I don't know really. I tend to just ignore them if they are in a game I'm playing. I mean, they're an insidious sort of idea, but so long as they're not essential too... I guess I do feel that if you've played full price for a game, you shouldn't then have to pay more money to unlock further stuff.
360) I didn't know anything about this, so I had to look it up. Skyrim Together is being funded via Patreon, yes? I mean, I can only speak for myself. I make a decent, but by no means enough-to-live-on amount on Patreon each month (most of which goes back into buying games to review and bits to look at on the YouTube channel), but even in a year it's still less than was raised through our Digitiser The Show Kickstarter.
If I'd used that money to fund a year of Digi Minis, rather than making a bells-and-whistles show, and offering physical rewards, and a live show, I probably could've - just about - lived off it. I guess it depends on the project.
In terms of doing something like Found Footage or Digitiser The Show, it's incredibly valuable to have a big chunk of change upfront, which can pay for studio time, props and scenery and crew etc. Whereas Patreon really helps with the smaller scale Digi Minis. Thanks to the Patreon, I've been able to afford a new camera, new sound equipment, etc. which are all an investment for the future.
What I'd really like is for the Patreon to reach an amount where I could afford to pay some sort of appearance fee to, say, Gannon. At the moment he's doing it - hopefully - because he enjoys it, and because it allows him to plug Cheapshow, which is his real passion project. We see Digi and Cheapshow as the nucleus of a network, which we hope to expand upon in the future.
When we've done the live show, we'll likely be looking at doing a Kickstarter for a second series, which will be handled rather differently (both in the creative sense, and in terms of what we offer backers). What I'd love for a second series is the spirit of the Minis, coupled to the production values of Series 1 - with, in an ideal world, some location filming.
I'm also starting to get a bit twitchy about doing something in the vein of Found Footage again (in terms of views, it did better than Digi), but I accept that I don't have a huge fanbase that could fund Digi Minis, Digitiser The Show, Digitiser2000, and Found Footage all in one year, so I need to space out these things.
I'm incredibly lucky to have a small but passionate audience that seems willing to support both a monthly subscription, and a bigger-scale fundraiser once every 18 months or so. That works for the sorts of things I want to do.
Hey - support me on Patreon!
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This weekend is the event. The live stream of epic proportions. We have forged our bodies in the tradition of our ancestors and we're now a desert bus driving force of extraordinary magnitude.
Saturday, 2:30pm - visit http://live.nikkiandbunty.com/ to see us stream all 8 hours of Desert Bus to raise money for Amnesty International!
Go donate at https://bit.ly/nabdesertbus too!
And also, a video, because we like videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8P31p5zEjk
Thank you!!!
Nikki and Bunty