Episode 528: Luxury Tessellation Glampist

The Science Faction Podcast

This episode contains: A big birthday wish to Martine! Devon’s been glamping, but needed a little more definition to ensure he did it right. This glamp was like a tiny home, with plumbing, a fire pit, and a hot tub too! It was strictly NO KIDS, and had a real beehive theme to it. Since it’s a two-person only sort of deal, if the three podcast hosts wanted to go glamping, Steven and Ben have volunteered to be the two monkeys wearing a trenchcoat (maybe AI can help us with that visual). Steven’s been walking (for his health, blechh) and listening to books. What’s he listening to? Book Six of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and it’s quite a ride. The audiobooks have some exclusive content. Steven’s also 3D printing a giant Cantina set for the Star Wars miniatures game. Ben has been playing video games, specifically UFO 50: fifty games in one Steam app that are meant to be an alternate universe take on a video game system from the 1980s. Kinda sounds lame except these are all games by six GOAT-level developers who worked for around a decade on them. They work great on the Steam Deck, have incredible game design choices and they also have a compelling meta narrative outside all the games. Check this review if you want to hear some genuine gushing about the game. Ben discusses the game Mortul within UFO 50, but then he surprises EVERYONE by talking about ANOTHER RETRO-INSPIRED VIDEO GAME PLATFORM. WHAAAAT?!?! If you like UFO 50, perhaps you’d be interested in the PICO-8 Fantasy Console (Hint, you may already have it if you bought itch.io’s Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality). Steven talks a little about a procedurally generated version of DOOM made by AI.

Future or Now: Steven’s watching Agatha All Along and The Penguin. Is this new tv era for MCU and DCU deeper, more grounded, and maybe better than the films? It comes down to fleshing out the characters better. Devon’s concerned that any new show has to be connected to successful movie franchises (especially if they’re comic book films) but this is nothing new. Remember Caprica? Ben does. We also have heard opinions but have no experience watching the new Joker movie.

Ben reviews The Wild Robot, and it’s an instant classic. It has the same writer/director as Lilo and Stitch but exists somewhere between a Miyazaki film, classic Disney films (like Bambi) and Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot books.

Book Club: We’ll announce our next week’s pick on our Discord. Join our Patreon (even on the free tier) to get access.

This week, we read (or listened to) In the Hills, the Cities from Volume 1 of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. Clive Barker weaves together kaiju monster movies with a touch of Socialism in Yugoslavia. Big thanks to Ben’s mom for suggesting this story. Is this a mediation on how we humans are just a colony of cells moving through life, screaming incoherently while destroying everything in our path? Didn’t work for Devon as well as Ben and Steven, but it makes Ben ponder the big questions:

• When do these people die? Is it when they are ejected from the community, or is it earlier? Is it when they give up sentience to be a part of the monster?
• What does this mean for us, and the groupthink in our communities, both locally and online? How destructive will our groupthink be?