T w e n t y S i d e d
– Shamus, Monday Nov 20, 2006
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster XXXII: Fire Safety”
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?
An Experiment in Retrogaming: Backward Compatible Consoles
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”
DM of the Rings Remaster XXXI: Familiar Lamentations
– Shamus, Friday Nov 17, 2006
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster XXXI: Familiar Lamentations”
Sims 4 Overthinking: David
Lottie’s BookNook is a modest success. It’s not lines down the block or somewhere people drive to go see, but completely empty afternoons are rarer than full ones. Kids 12 to 16 come in and pool their money together to rent the Wii for a few hours to play Super Smash Brothers. They’ve gotten requests to sell manga and anime art books, and fulfilling that request gives them another little bump in activity. Manga isn’t yet the easiest thing to get in their area of the world, it will be soon, but for now the couple is jumping through some hoops to get it. Kitchen Princess, Naruto, and Bleach are their main sells, because they’re some of the easier to stock, but they start to get kids asking about renting the books instead. Manga is expensive and the current main demographic for it isn’t old enough to have money to buy. The library doesn’t have manga yet, and it’s leaving the BookNook as the only outlet to get it. They begin a rental system. For $3 the kids can rent any book for a week, with a surcharge if they get damaged in any way.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sims 4 Overthinking: David”
Wednesday Action Log 8-2-23
This week I am playing Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. I am also playing Marvel’s Spider-Man remastered. I don’t know what I’m doing in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, but I’m having a good time; I’ve recently discovered smithing, and so far I’m enjoying the mechanic.
What are you guys up to?
From The Archives:
The Biggest Game Ever
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
Are Lootboxes Gambling?
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?
The Strange Evolution of OpenGL
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
The Witch Watch
My first REAL published book, about a guy who comes back from the dead due to a misunderstanding.
Project Button Masher
I teach myself music composition by imitating the style of various videogame soundtracks. How did it turn out? Listen for yourself.
A Star is Born
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
If Star Wars Was Made in 2006?
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
The Biggest Game Ever
How did this niche racing game make a gameworld so massive, and why is that a big deal?
The Best of 2013
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2013.
Another PC Golden Age?
Is it real? Is PC gaming returning to its former glory? Sort of. It's complicated.