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?
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”
– Shamus, Monday Nov 20, 2006
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster XXXII: Fire Safety”
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.
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?
Remember that time Nintendo released a console named after an embarrassing bodily function? Remember that time everybody was laughing at Nintendo for thinking handheld motion controls were the future of console gaming? Remember when Nintendo followed up their hit GameCube console with…two GameCubes taped together?
The “success” of a console can only be judged in context and with understanding; there are very few absolutes. The Wii did some important things, but only lasted five years…half of the hardware generation it was part of. It was replaced with the WiiU, which only lasted five years as well, and was basically a trial run for what would become the “Switch,” Nintendo’s actual next-gen console. The WiiU was technically a “better” system than the Wii, but is generally considered a lesser success. Our interest in the WiiU is because it actually has the ability to play every Nintendo console that preceded its release.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “An Experiment in Retrogaming: Backward Compatible Consoles”
– Shamus, Friday Nov 17, 2006
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster XXXI: Familiar Lamentations”
Which would you rather be: A king in the middle ages, or a lower-income laborer in the 21st century?
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2015.
Team Cap or Team Iron Man? More importantly, what basis would you use for making that decision?
What is this silly word, why did some people get so irritated by it, and why did it fall out of use?
Game developer Jon Blow is making a programming language just for games. Why is he doing this, and what will it mean for game development?
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
WAY back in 2005, I wrote about a D&D campaign I was running. The campaign is still there, in the bottom-most strata of the archives.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?
What are publishers doing to fight piracy and why is it all wrong?
T w e n t y S i d e d
