T w e n t y S i d e d
I’m taking Thursday off, so no comic on Friday. Enjoy your holiday.
– Shamus, Wednesday Nov 22, 2006
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster XXXIII: Stuffinged”
DM of the Rings Remaster XXXIII: Stuffinged
Sims 4 Overthinking: Flow Charts
The year is 2018. Logan has graduated high-school and taking a gap year to work at his parents’ bookshop before going off to college. David applied for a job at the BookNook despite the fact they never actually advertised a job was available. They don’t have the funds or need for an employee, so they turn him down but invite him to still come hang out with Logan while he’s working.
The boys are disappointed. Logan reacts in a way that is still a little over-blown compared to someone a little older and wiser, but nothing unmanageable. He’s 18, and ‘the worst thing that’s ever happened to him’ remains a fairly mild list of things. His grandmother’s death was when he was too little to truly understand and be affected by it, and otherwise he’s got it pretty good. At one point in his mid-teens, he announced that something was the worst thing that ever happened to him. If you asked him now what it was, he wouldn’t even be able to tell you, and would be embarrassed he’d said it, but Logan saying it had made his parents beam with pride despite themselves. Not at him, necessarily, but the fact that something so minor was the worst. The phrase was a hormonal teenager having a moment of runaway emotions, but the win was there. Logan didn’t have anything worse to compare it to.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sims 4 Overthinking: Flow Charts”
Wednesday Action Log 8-16-23
This week I am waiting impatiently for the Phasmophobia update. I’m still playing Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord but it’s nothing interesting, it’s just biding my time till I get get my hands on the cool new equipment they’re teasing for Phasmaphobia: Ascension.
What are you guys up to?
An Experiment in Retrogaming: Coming To Terms
A big part of my “experiment” in retrogaming has been purely technical: just to see what I could do; even see what I could get away with. But that goal was meant to serve the idea of simplicity and aesthetics. Ideally, I would be able to play everything, up to a reasonable point, on one system. When that proved impossible, you add a system. And moving on, you only add complexity if absolutely necessary. I didn’t want to just set up an emulation PC, either. While that could, arguably, reduce the number of systems needed, it adds in a level of difficulty in control and integration that a console doesn’t have. That is, a PC isn’t really designed for simple, straightforward control on a TV; consoles are. And yes, there are MANY caveats, and many arguments to be made for how to mitigate this, and many opinions that are going to differ about how much of a problem, or even whether it *IS* a problem…but please accept that for me, this is not the solution I’m looking for.
Another major component of the experiment is to get away from my computer. I have spent a significant portion of my life in front of a computer screen, and I’m trying to find ways to reduce that time. Certainly you could argue that moving away from the computer screen to sit in front of a television screen isn’t much of an improvement, but I have learned that the key element to breaking any behavior-related addiction, or even just a behavior that is negatively affecting your life, is to change your routine.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “An Experiment in Retrogaming: Coming To Terms”
DM of the Rings Remaster XXXII: Fire Safety
– Shamus, Monday Nov 20, 2006
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster XXXII: Fire Safety”
Sims 4 Overthinking: Functional Break Week
Alright guys. Question time.
Does our fictional little house world have Covid-19 in it or not? We should be hitting 2020 very soon here, and I have no particular stakes in either choice, but it will change things pretty substantially either way, so I’m putting it to you guys.
I’ll hold back my evil laughter.
Wednesday Action Log 8-9-23
This week I am still playing Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. I’m getting the hang of the economy, I now own a town, and done much more smithing. People like your product better if you give them what they ordered, turns out. It’s amusing to watch my small army run around with me (a man who is basically a merchant with a small army) while I do smithing quests. Seems like a good enough deal for them. I pay them, and they do very little actual fighting. Save for the few times I’ve accidently let them starve, they have it pretty good.
What are you guys up to?
From The Archives:
Stop Asking Me to Play Dark Souls!
An unhinged rant where I maybe slightly over-reacted to the water torture of Souls evangelism.
Fixing Match 3
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
TitleWhat’s Inside Skinner’s Box?
What is a skinner box, how does it interact with neurotransmitters, and what does it have to do with shooting people in the face for rare loot?
Ludonarrative Dissonance
What is this silly word, why did some people get so irritated by it, and why did it fall out of use?
The Death of Half-Life
Valve still hasn't admitted it, but the Half-Life franchise is dead. So what made these games so popular anyway?
Control
A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.
Stolen Pixels
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
Games and the Fear of Death
Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
Zenimax vs. Facebook
This series explores the troubled history of VR and the strange lawsuit between Zenimax publishing and Facebook.
This Scene Breaks a Character
Small changes to the animations can have a huge impact on how the audience interprets a scene.