Ben X

Well done for (almost) finishing! Yeah, I guess it's probably smart to deprioritise festivals right now, considering COVID.

Saw this and thought of @Erkki's thread!

Coming to Switch on the 18th June! (also edited the OP)

Excellent!

Just finished S4. So, from episode 9 onwards, it gets AMAZING. They perhaps weren't playing with the most original ideas - - but they made them their own and made them sing. Consistently clever, exciting, funny and touching. Wow. If S5+ can at least stay in a place between S3 and this, I'll be happy.

I have been told that this is in fact the case, and actually now I'm on the second mini-arc it has immediately picked up!

I've started binging Agents of SHIELD. I skipped most of the first 10 episodes, then pretty much watched everything once it got to the Winter Soldier tie-in. The first few episodes were pretty ropey, but it definitely keeps improving. It's never really got beyond Buffy seasons 1&2 levels of quality for me, though. Season 3 was definitely the strongest so far. It's not mind-blowingly great, and I still wish I could have gone through every script with a red pen to clean up grammatical errors, clunky wording and terrible quips before filming, but it's consistently solid with lots of good moments sprinkled on top. I like what they did with The action is a lot better, the effects work is impressive, and the narrative is more propulsive. It still needs a lot more character work (FitzSimmons have never ceased to be annoying as fuck, there are a lot of two-dimensional/cipher background cast, and even the leads don't have that much to them - compare the Firefly crew characterisation after 6 episodes to this lot after 2.5 seasons) and more narrative experimentation (the occasional flashforward bookend does not cut it! Episodes like "4,722 Hours" are a good start, but they really need to play with the format like, say, Buffy or Person Of Interest would). I was looking forward to S4 because I'd heard here and elsewhere that that's where it gets really strong, but I'm 8 episodes in and I'm a little frustrated because so far it's at best on the same level as S3 but if anything it's worse. I was also told that they did a (ugh) 'soft reboot' here, but so far all they've done is shuffled some pieces around so there's more frustrating bureaucracy to deal with, and replaced the strong 3-seasons-build-up villains with some boring They've even managed to make dull. Brannigan mentioned that here they moved from season-long arcs to three or four mini-arcs, but I'm 8 episodes in and it all feels like wheel-spinning for future stuff so far. I'm going to keep watching it, because there's still good stuff in there, it got a proper ending apparently, and, well, it's the COVID quarantine what else am I going to do. But I really hope this season picks up in the second half and lives up to the hype!

I got back into using letterboxd a while ago, and I now review every film I watch. I'm https://letterboxd.com/timegentleman .

Do it!

@AlexGamechuck this is supposed to be a reference list of released indie games with brief entries. Might be better to move those two posts into their own thread if you want to keep us updated on your (lovely looking) game. Example entry: Lair Of The Clockwork God By: Size Five Games Available: £15.49 on Steam or GOG Synopsis: adventure game/platformer mash-up, written by and starring me and a friend. Comes with a free visual novel prequel.

I gave up on Picard. Very slow, clunky writing, dull story. I got a few minutes into episode 5 when another character pretty much looked into camera and said "this is my backstory and emotional arc", and then I was reminded of the prospect of a 'casino planet' episode and that was it for me. Also, re. this Discovery discussion I gave up on Discovery too, but seems like

LOTCG, Justin McElroy's favourite smaller game of 2020 so far, is now available for Mac and Linux, and on GOG too! https://www.gog.com/game/lair_of_the_clockwork_god (Launch sale 10% off at GOG right now.) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1060600/Lair_of_the_Clockwork_God Okay, I'll shut up about it again until we get on another store or platform!

Yeah, when we were in the hot-tub we were on a dialogue-writing retreat, a lot of the game was built already. We've been working on this for years!

Amazing behind the scenes trivia, thank you!