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I finished the Witcher 3 last night! This is the first RPG I've completed since Final Fantasy 9. Typically what happens is after I spend 15 hours in a game I end up moving on to some other game because I just don't have the attention span anymore. Then when I come back to it a few months later I completely forget how any of the systems work, and have completely forgotten the plot. So I just give up and leave the game behind. But the Witcher 3 actually has a great interface (and the interface kept getting better as the game got patched), and it does a really smart thing by having the loading screen act as a recap of the plot. So the game basically did everything right for someone like me who just kind of sporadically does games. The ending made me feel appropriately bummed about my choices throughout the game because that is definitely a universe where people are just kind of shitty and the best you can hope for is to make things slightly less terrible than they might otherwise be.

So I want to hear from the Patreon backers that picked this game. When I saw that it won my immediate assumption was that the 3MA audience has a lot more trolls than I had considered. So what was the real motivation here?

I don't think you you really need to frame it as a conspiracy to notice a huge discrepancy over how most media covers the polls compared to a site like election.princeton.edu which takes a considered, academic approach to analyzing the polls. Even fivethirtyeight is pretty bad at this point (their data is good, but the articles analyzing the polls are often incredibly disingenuous and/or misleading). Also hey, Matt Lauer was really bad last night huh?

Also Chris' reading of the predictive text output from Yelp reviews of the Parisian catacombs made me so happy.

But why would you setup an apartheid system as opposed to just implementing a ban on augmentation if you're a government? That's one of the many things about the new Deus Ex premise that makes no sense. I think it is also kind of weird how jarring the fiction is of how augmented people are 2nd class citizens but the game also does the typical video game thing of making you the ultimate badass and doesn't really get in the way of that power fantasy. Like, if that's the premise of your game why not at least explore that via the mechanics of the game?

That's Atom Zombie Smasher by Blendo Games.

I think it is pretty hard to design games where you have a relatively symmetrical AI opponent that isn't easily gamed within a short time frame. One thing Flotilla and AZS have going for them is that they can be challenging without a particularly sophisticated AI. But the type of design that exists in a lot of strategy games probably isn't appropriate in something with a more contained scope. The reason board games work is because you are playing against people, but in my experience at least I find playing against the AI for board game ports to be not particularly interesting, and I've usually exhausted that experience after about 3 playthroughs. But I find roguelikes to be very successful when they are smaller in scope. And again, roguelikes don't have particularly challenging AI, but the random configuration of opponents can keep things interesting. So I think this space could maybe be explored successfully with some sort of roguelike-strategy hybrid.

GG got refolded into twitch's broader e-sports platform (or something like that). I think the changes to Alliance and EG are independent of that though, but who knows.

I believe they already did the spoiler chat in lieu of doing it at a later date.

5 successful ones gets you the Absolution suit, and 10 gets you the Blood Money suit. Nothing too special to be honest, and they can't really beat the casual summer wear that you sport in some of the levels.

Wow, big announcements today. Fear and Zai off EG. New Secret roster is MP, Forev, Midone, Pieliedie, and Puppey. I'm way into that! Also hints that Alliance may be disbanding.

Here's how the Elusive Target went down for me:

I am sort of there when it comes to those older tactical games, you can also include the original X-COM in that mix. My problem is those games are always a little more granular than I want them to be. The new Firaxis XCOM games strike a better balance for my tastes. Also I started playing Steamworld Heist last night, and it is indeed amazing. I'm not too surprised because I also played Steamworld Dig. I am sort of surprised the developer hasn't gotten more buzz. Their games are wonderfully designed.

I like how the podcast started out like everyone had taken a bunch of sleeping pills and ramped up to ultimate grumpfest. Also, I am with the cast on trailer soundtracks, but I'm also even grumpier than the cast because I thought the new Star Trek movie was not great, and that Beastie Boys thing was incredibly corny!

Goddammit... Moo kicked for Moon. I don't like Moon one bit, and Moo was the best. This is like the worst possible news... the only other change that could possibly make me as irate would be like swapping Reso for Envy.

I've got different drinks for each level of Hitman. Paris - French 75 Sapienza - Negroni Morocco - Coffee Bangkok - Had to make up a drink here since I'm not familiar with any cocktails from Thailand. So I present the Rubber Duck Explosive - muddle strawberries and Thai basil in a glass. Add 2 oz. vodka, 1 oz. sweet syrup, 1/2 oz. of lime juice. Shake and pour, add crushed ice.

Skulls of the Shogun is the tactics game that springs to my mind that has no strategy/management layer. I didn't love the controls for it (game was definitely designed with a controller in mind), and the silly storyline didn't work for me, but overall I thought it was smartly designed and worth playing. Also worth checking out the Banner Saga and Skyshine's Bedlam. Both those games have a strategy layer, but it is really light, and if you liked FTL I think both those games should be appealing. None of these games have much, if any, RNG when it comes to the tactics. Too bad you don't enjoy the RNG though because you're missing out on a lot of classics of the genre as a result! You can also maybe try out Chaos Reborn which now has a RNG free mode (although personally I think that version is dull as dirt). It has a demo so you check it out before committing money which is a good call because even though I think the game is brilliant I know a lot of people bounced off of it.

Well good news for you Twig, there was an interview with Saksa (in Russian Macedonian, so this statement is with the caveat that I'm going off of a summary of what he supposedly said) and he said they are sticking together.

It sounds like there are a group of modders that are looking to implement co-op support. Intriguing!

So I'm finally a PS4 owner so I started playing Bloodborne yesterday. I was a little hesitant about picking it up because I bounced hard off of DS3 and figured I had exhausted my enjoyment of Souls games, but nope, turns out I just really hated DS3! I love all the design changes, and the overall simplification of all those systems that had accumulated throughout the years. It makes me wonder why DS3 wasn't similarly stripped down...

While never say never when it comes to potential roster changes, the possibility of Misery and w33 going back to Secret strikes me as extremely unlikely. It sounds like Puppey didn't like playing with w33, and Misery has something of a grudge vs Secret at this point. That being said, I could totally see a DC disband, and they all drift their separate ways to different teams.

New roster lock system is interesting. I could still see potential issues with it, but at least it is better than the old system. So far the news is MP is out of MVP, EternalEnvy is out of Secret, and most of the CIS scene is shuffling (besides Na'Vi, for now).

As a PSA Steve Gaynor created a contract for Hitman. I have been toying with the idea of starting up an Idle Thumbs group dedicated to creating and playing each others contracts, I think it could be fun :-)

OMG SEAN CAST <3 <3 <3

Well, that was a phenomenal tournament. Only 3 things could have made it better in my mind: 1. Blitz and Cap casting the grand finals, or at the very least someone other than Tobi 2. The grand finals being a little closer... pretty clear that by game 3 Wings got inside DC's head. Also good lord did Shadow get so many bashes. 3. Io arcana reveal