The Two Vague Podcast
The Two Vague Podcast
Ben Cheknis
Episode 144 - Oblique
1 hour 7 minutes Posted Feb 8, 2026 at 5:19 am.
Traffic on the 2s and 7s, Andrew’s cool stuff, and Ben is scheduling for the future00:03:36 - Raiding arks, geometry adjacent, a pit of BALLS, and heavy ball propulsion variety00:06:05 - Dungeon Clawler, CJ’s sleeping habits, maybe a baby carcass, and the pinkest pink00:09:23 - Salvaging pegboard, concocting passive revenge strategies, and being a card cook00:15:31 - Famous British cuisine, portable meats, not Ben’s cup of tea, and no Scrabble score00:17:27 - The settee, lots of Geometry, grammatical cases, and Help for esteemed creators00:24:01 - Three friends, usage in print, Brian Eno’s fault, script flipping, and Oblique Strategies 00:26:43 - Water, Ben counters with Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey, and more strategies 00:29:26 - Devo doesn’t need a reset, the ADHD coping skills deck, and usage instructions00:32:06 - Circumventing patterns, performance metrics, requesting downtime, and tweaking00:36:31 - Pigeonholing, different brains and conformity, an explanation, and openly autistic00:40:28 - Talking Heads music, levels of impairment, and don’t be afraid to show empathy00:42:38 - A Yoda quote, lessons learned, an autistic coping skills deck, and avoiding overload00:46:01 - A new Shiny Shirt Ben appearance, breaking up tasks, and notes for Andrew’s agent00:48:42 - Not bringing Steinbeck in, drafting memories, and perspective drawing nonsense 00:53:20 - THE one-way feud, a new Marvel-themed game, shadows and parallax scrolling00:56:59 - Atari’s Paperboy, brief origin story, paper delivery experience, and Ebert over Siskel01:00:15 - Transparencies, old presentation methods, cast changes for realism, and controls01:03:28 - Buy my stuff, romancing the plant, getting sued by the N’s, and quit licking yourself
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Show notes
Andrew joins Ben this week to celebrate their penchants for approaching things from a different angle. Lack of perpendicularity aside, they discuss the abundant number of neurodiversity irons Andrew has in the proverbial fire, along with strategies to navigate creative blocks and coping skills for mental burnout. Before doing a deep dive into Andrew's ADHD Coping Skills deck and how they navigate their emotions, they pit Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies deck against Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. And OF COURSE, Ben will put on a perspective drawing clinic before describing (in excruciatingly painful detail) how 3D spaces are represented in various video games. Specific games mentioned this week include Ball X Pit, Arc Raiders, Dungeon Clawler, Abra-Cooking-Dabra, Arcane Eats, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, and Paperboy.
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For show appearance and other inquiries, contact us at: [email protected] …for all of your PRI and 2VP merch, check out the Partly Robot Industries store at TEEPUBLIC!https://www.teepublic.com/user/partly-robot-industries
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References, Links, and Tags
Ball X Pit - developed by Kenny Sun and published by Devolver Digitalhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU1voPpJkJAhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/2062430/BALL_x_PIT/
Abra-Cooking-Dabra - developed and published by Door 407https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ytLD_sJO0https://store.steampowered.com/app/3021530/AbraCookingDabra/
Arcane Eats - developed by Wonderbelly Ga