From the Desk of Brad Shoemaker

I'm Brad from Giant Bomb. Let's get to know each other. You go first!

[bwadshoemaker]

would it be fair to say you're a person who values privacy and politeness?

Yup!

[bwadshoemaker]

What happens to hot dogs in the south? Do you guys put slaw on them?

Chili, mustard, onions, slaw. The correct hot dog.

[bwadshoemaker]

Why have you stopped answering questions here?

Have I? Have I really?

[bwadshoemaker]

Hey Bradley. Do you still play Dota2 often? Any new mobas on the horizon you're interested in?

I got pretty deep into finishing quests for the winter battle pass this weekend. Dota is slowly but surely reasserting itself in my life.As for other mobas, I'm mildly curious about Paragon.

[bwadshoemaker]

I think a "Spoilercast" for The Witness would totally work. Just talk about some of the mindblowing puzzles (the greenhouse ones were pretty great, right?) and your discoveries. I think that would be super entertaining for people who played the game already.

We've got some ideas kicking around for more Witness coverage.

[bwadshoemaker]

A dwarf with great leadership stats came to my fort and eventually promoted to expedition leader. A while later dead dwarves started turning up with no blood. Turns out the leader had such good stats because he was a vampire who had blended in with a recent wave of migrants. Vampires do not require food or drink to survive, so the dwarves of the fort were instructed to construct a wall in front of the vampire expedition leader's room where he would remain in charge but be unable to hurt anyone.

...fuck.

[bwadshoemaker]

Speaking of Dwarf Fortress, there were some pretty interesting discussions a while back on the game's forums relating to a method of producing super soldiers that entailed chaining children to posts near moving magma and allowing the spray off the magma to burn off their fatty layers, thus rendering them desensitized to pain and immune to catching on fire. I'm not sure anyone got it perfect but the fact that it was a serious theory at all is a pretty great Dwarf Fortress thing.

Mechanically inventive and ethically indefensible. What CAN’T this game do?

[bwadshoemaker]

One of my dwarves had a pet pig that followed him everywhere. The dwarf sadly met his demise one day by falling down a hole. I eventually found his mangled remains with his pet pig mourning by his side. I cleaned the corpse up, but the pig kept returning to the scene inbetween bouts of wandering aimlessly around my fort. Later, I get a message saying the pig had been found dead. He had fallen down the exact same hole his owner did. I'm fairly sure he did it on purpose.

I should try Dwarf Fortress.

[bwadshoemaker]

About how many minutes/hours do you think is cut on average from one of those daily Game of the Year podcasts? At the end of the Day 2 one you mention it's been nearly a full day's worth of hours and yet the actual podcast is 4.25 hours, so I imagine there must be some dead air, coughs, side tracks and other things that have to be cut?

Oh, almost nothing is cut other than a little dead air. We record multiple GOTY episodes on the same day, so we had already done all of day one and two in the same day at that point.

[bwadshoemaker]

Lemmy is dead! Just like you predicted!

I never said that and moreover Lemmy is alive and well thanks.

[bwadshoemaker]

japanese curry swagganese flurry sugoii desu ne

Sou desu ne.

[bwadshoemaker]

No question, I just wanted to let you know I've really been enjoying your Encyclopedia Bombastica episodes. Rad retro FPS games deserve it!

Those are fun and I've been getting more comfortable with the format. Just got a nice mic setup going too, so no more crappy clipping VO.

[bwadshoemaker]

Please use red backlighting for the new set. The colors will be on-brand and look fucken epic bro

Those colors can be whatever we want!

[bwadshoemaker]

I played Quake 2 with my Dad growing up, it was really neat to see you do a Bombastica about it. Question of curiosity: do you think we could get a game with Quake/Doom speed again? There was something really intense about running through these levels just going for broke.

The new Doom seems like it's at least trying to replicate that style of breakneck nonsense, but how well it pulls that off remains to be seen.

[bwadshoemaker]

Please provide a much-needed piggie update, buster!

They are very excited to see Santa.

[bwadshoemaker]

Holiday 2008 theme

SHIT YOURE RIGHT

[bwadshoemaker]

You should totally come by the Somethingawful GB thread again, everyone's just as stupid as before. Their current conspiracy theory is that you're going to personally prevent Mario Maker from being GOTY because you don't think it's a game. Good times! (I can't stop looking at it it's like a car crash in internet forum form send help)

That thread is bad and dumb.