Troels Pleimert

You might want to stay away from songs like Heresy, dude. ;) Anyway ... Yeah, good picks, people! I love Tool as much as the next guy -- in fact, I even bought that Lateralus vinyl with the double picture discs and the holographic artwork that didn't sound all that great, but looked spectacular -- and I have both Toxicity and Steal This Album from System of a Down (which is one of my wife's favorite bands). Oh, and I gotta give a shout-out to this one: Hell fuckin' yeah! Paradise Lost ticks everyone of my boxes with regards to depressing lyrics, punishing guitars, and -- of course -- a good, solid melody you can sing along to. I mean, it may not be everyone's favorite, but I LOVE the song "Symbol Of Life." Anyone who can sing the lines "can't get by with what I've got / always dwell on what I've lost / just a loaded gun, a symbol of my life" convincingly is a fuckin' hero in my book. Anyway, time for a showcase, ladies and janitors. How about some epic rhythm guitar work to start us off? Brandon, I know you're going to get a kick out of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3269wR6Kg_M These guys are (were) my fuckin' heroes of cybermetal. These guys effortlessly took everything that made Fear Factory great and just upped it to the ultimate level. You know that "next level" Tyra Banks always talks about on Top Model? These guys took the fucking warp cheat and went straight on to the last level. I was so sad to see these guys break up. Luckily, I did manage to see them live once and I got one of their guitar picks with "Sybreed" emblazoned on it. Next up, let's go to Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTLL7KieVuI Sorry I can't show you a performance or anything, but this song is just ... well, it's creepy, it's technically impressive, it's hyper-aggressive, it's melancholic; it's everything I want in a song. These guys are Australian, so you'll have to fill me in on the cultural discrepancies, but, as far as I can tell, this is about a person in an abusive relationship finally exacting his/her revenge on the perpetrator. My favorite line of this song echoes the old Tex Murphy game "Mean Streets" with the breakdown, "My perception covered in red / All of the psychotic voices screaming inside my head / I can't separate anymore." Again, I realize in writing this sounds like any 14-year-old angsty teenagers diary and shit, but in the context of the song, the pause that comes before him screaming "anymore" and then the tranquil, melodic guitar line that follows ... well, shit. What does this have to do with Tex Murphy, you may ask? Well, every time this dude yells "screaming inside my head," I immediately think of Carl Linsky's tape recorder: "They're in my head! They're in my head!" Okay, so I'm a nerd. Right, finally ... let's get off our train to Depressionville and get on the expressway to JustPlainFuckingImpressiveTown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoRZRMD2kCM Brandon, you're free to join in any time while I pick my jaw off the floor. Edit: Boy, BBcode is really screwing with me. Sorry, guys.

Angel Dust is an amazing album. I saw Faith No More on their reunion tour at Roskilde Festival and I remember being super bummed out that they didn't play Malpractice. Look up Mike Patton and The Dillinger Escape Plan doing Malpractice live -- fantastic stuff. I also really, really love Mr. Bungle. Particularly the first album. It's silly, weird, dark and unapologetically so. :)

Yes, please!!! Been a big fan of HevyDevy for a long time now. Still waiting for my vinyl edition of Z2. Way ahead of you. ;) Spent a lot of time in high school listening to Obsolete and Demanufacture. Actually, it was the original Carmageddon game that introduced me to Fear Factory with its use of an instrumental version of Zero Signal as its theme tune. I saw them open for Devin Townsend recently, though, and, boy, Burton C. Bell can't sing for shit live. I wonder how much studio trickery went into making those classic albums. Yes, I even liked Digimortal. A lot. :P

We've got a couple of music threads going, so I thought I'd add to the mayhem and seriously bring some noise. There seems to be a fair number of metalheads among Space Quest fans. Our very own MusicallyInspired, of course. And, much to my ecstatic surprise, it turns out that Tom King, the dude who plays Chuck Clusterbluck on my podcast, has a very similar taste in music to my own. So, hey, come forward! What kind of metal (if any) are you guys into? My favorite style is industrial metal. It's not just the mix of computer sounds, distorted guitars and furious double-pedal drumming. I am fascinated with industrial metal's preoccupation with dehumanization; the struggle between man and machine. In broader terms, I know I come off as a whiny teenager here, but I love music that has a depressive, suicidal, despondent, despairing theme. Whenever someone sings (or, more often, screams) about killing themselves and everyone around them, I'm in. Bands that have taken up permanent residence in my music player include Sybreed, Sphere, Synthetic Breed, Sovereign, Blue Stahli, Dagoba, Mechina ... and, of course, my one true love, Gary Numan. I'm not so much into chest-beating metal, or sword-and-sorcery metal. And, although I'm not adverse to female fronted metal (I like The Birthday Massacre, for instance), stuff like Nightwish or Lacuna Coil turns me off.

Right now, I'm having a Manic Street Preachers period, thanks to drdrslashvohaul. (Fucker got to see the Manics perform The Holy Bible live recently; I would've gladly bashed his skull in to take his place for that one.) So I'm not going to be much use in a Zappa thread at the moment; sorry. :P

I have been a Nine Inch Nails fan since high school. I remember being introduced to The Downward Spiral in 1997 when I was an exchange student at Chittenango High School in New York. I can't pick a favorite 'cos they're all so damn good. I'll admit I don't listen to Ghosts or the remix albums that often, though; I prefer the "proper" albums. Oddly, I have so many positive memories associated with Spiral, even though it's such a depressive album. In contrast, The Fragile became the soundtrack to the ensuing depression that followed my return from the States. And, much later, Year Zero perfectly mirrored my glitchy, blistering rage and disillusionment at the state of the world around me as I went to university. Now, as a slightly more calm and composed individual, Hesitation Marks tickles me in some very good spots, although I will say it's a bit exhausting listening to it from start to finish. My prize possessions are my vinyl records of Broken, Spiral, Fragile, The Slip and Year Zero. I regularly bust them out whenever I'm in the vinyl listening mood. I still dream of one day recording my own version of Gave Up.

That was tons of fun. When Steve said adventure games were like a dildo, I nearly threw up from laughing.

Thanks, guys. I would love to be able to keep you more in the loop. I've been privileged to see some of the work-in-progress stuff and been allowed to play internal builds of the game to give feedback from a "game player" perspective. But I also have to respect the Two Guys' wishes not to let anything out into the open that they don't want to show yet. Would I do things differently if this was my own Kickstarted game? It's too easy to say yes, because there's a lot of work that goes into a thing like this, and I completely understand that the Guys just want to bunker down and get this thing done as soon as possible, and not spend any (for lack of a better word) extraneous time coming up with clever updates and tidbits. I would love to see more stuff released to the public and I totally understand the sentiment from the disgruntled backers. But this isn't my Kickstarter. I'm just a fan like you guys. A fan with some added privileges, sure, but a fan first and foremost. I'm a cheerleader and I may seem overly optimistic at times, but this is not because I get to play with the big dogs or because I'm getting some sort of kickback. 'Cos I'm not. I'm really just super-psyched for the game. And because I get to actually talk with the dudes who are making it, my confidence in their ability and the game they're putting out remains unwavered.

I just had to leave a comment at the Kickstarter page. The mood over there is growing just an eentsy too despondent for my tastes.

I could take a selfie with my shirt off next to a blurry screen of the current test build, if that'd help.

Fuck this person.

Unity update does not mean "scrap the engine and start from scratch." ;)

(Once this fabulous adventure is over, I'm thinking of collating the whole thing into a festive and somewhat professional-looking pdf. Probably going to need some cover art, though ... Wink, wink.)

Huh? Don't be discouraged by the lack of posts. This board is a fun and cozy place, but not exactly a whirlwind of activity.

Okay, okay, you got me. But, still, making the skimmer sequence harmless takes away its impact. I liked how SQ1VGA just made it straight up skippable.

I have no short orders! But think of it as a tall request. ;)

Well, you need a certain minimum for the skimmer to purchase your ship from Tiny. If you render it such that however poorly you do on the skimmer sequence you can still get sufficient buckazoids on the trade-off, the skimmer sequence is reduced to a simple cockblocking exercise.

*crickets* ;)

It'll be a Candy Crush clone. I can just feel it. "Tap here to buy extra gold coins to see Madame Mushka."

Okay, so ... screw the twangy-ness. Here's what's up. I'm going to do one final episode for 2014 for Christmas (or whatever holidays you guys feel most comfortable with), and it's going to be about balls-out hard-as-shit puzzles. 'Cos, you know, what says Christmas more than "I needed a WHAT to get past those cave lasers?!"? Now, to make this extra special, I was hoping I could get a bunch of you to let me know what your favorite HARD, BUT FAIR puzzle of Space Quest was. It can be the official games, or the fan games. I also plan to ask Scott about the origins of some of these puzzles, so the more suggestions, the merrier! (I will, however, cherry-pick. You know how this works.) Note that I said hard, but fair. No Skate-o-Rama's. No running-out-of-oxygen-while-trying-to-save-Cliffy. I mean honest to goodness hard as balls puzzles. Your rock-in-jockstraps, your dropkicking-Arnoid-in-the-gears, your Super Computer laser grids, that sort of thing. If you can get something to me by the end of the week, the episode will come out Thursday next week, just in time for Christmas! (Again, your choice of holiday celebration may vary.) Edit: Of course, the only way this will be really special is if you send it to me as a voice file at troels@pleimert.dk :D

Hey ... The year is coming to an end, and so is season 1 of Back Seat Designers. To commemorate this dubious occasion, Frede and I are having a grand ol' blast of a season finale live on Hangout/YouTube on December 20th at these times: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Back+Seat+Designers+Season+Finale+Hangout&iso=20141220T20&p1=69&ah=2 We will be joined by a roundtable of illustrious peeps in the adventure gaming community to talk about all the topics we've covered during the season, including moon logic, death in adventure games, pet peeves and "what the hell is an adventure game, anyway?". Currently confirmed guests are Steven Alexander (Infamous Quests), Joe Mastroianni (Upper Memory Block podcast) and Scott Murphy (some dude who wrote this game, I forget what it was, maybe Galaxy Quest or something). We'll post the link to watch live on our Twitteries (@torbenfrost and @frederik_olsen) shortly before the broadcast begins, and you can tweet us your questions, comments and stupid remarks with the hashtag #BackSeatDesigners.

NEEDS MOAR SWITCH-FLIPPING

*air-twangs*

NEEDS MOAR SLIDER PUZZLES

Thought appreciated. Anyone else? :P