Neil Gaiman once claimed that ranking the best Monty Python sketches was one of the worst things you could make someone do. The second or third or fourth of fifth worst thing is an unexpected Spanish Inquisition, but his claim makes sense once you start picking favorites. Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam don’t make it easy. There are 45 episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, with an astonishing number of sketches per episode. Then there’s the variety of styles: Intense wordplay; brain-melting farce; satirical slap fest; naked absurdity. The chaotic bounce from one to the next makes weighing the best against the best almost futile. Plus, figuring out where one sketch ends and another begins is enough to make you reach for an aspirin or the dead crab. With every episode now on Netflix, binge-watching Flying Circus offers a comforting rhythm to the foolishness. You pick up the patterns of TV announcers, animal … [Read more...] about The 11 funniest Monty Python sketches (and 4 pictures of a vole)
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The making of Audiosurf, the synesthesia simulator
A telling difference between today's indie games scene and that of 10 years ago is how excited Dylan Fitterer was to hear his game was going to be on Steam. Audiosurf had just been nominated for three IGF awards in the categories of Technical Excellence, Excellence in Audio, and the Seamus McNally Grand Prize. As Dylan tells it, "Then I got a call from Jason Holtman at Valve who said, 'Hey, you want to sell this on Steam?' That blew me away. That was crazy to get an offer like that."Audiosurf went on to win the audio category as well as the audience vote, but the bigger prize was that it became February 2008's top seller on Steam, both by number of copies sold and revenue, despite being an indie rhythm game that cost 10 bucks. It eventually sold over a million copies. Of course since this was 2008, it was one of only five games released on Steam that month.Best Game Ever Dot Com Getting to that point was a road as bumpy as any of the rollercoaster levels Audiosurf makes out … [Read more...] about The making of Audiosurf, the synesthesia simulator