I have suggested it on a few occasions, but I am something like a consultant(?) on Broodhollow. This is a sort of ornamental way of saying that I am essentially a fan with access to the creator. His writhing, newly-hatched larva is, no doubt, a veritable mine of horrors he can fold into his work - but we spent a few hours yesterday fully enunciating the spine of the setting and setting up the most pristine domino configuration to knock down over the course of the next year. The whiteboard in his office now resembles (if not fully manifests) the "crazy wall" universally embroidered by cult members and psychic children.

I told Gwarb about these works in an effort to instigate some kind of artistic bidding war, and it super didn't go my way because I am essentially a stenographer. If he ever finds out about Dragon or whatever I'm fucked. The ride is over. I will have to begin writing exclusively as my Fursona (Scotty Spotts, leopard cub/quetzal, blue eyes, slogan: "I'm in the catbird seat!")

Wasteland was the first game I ever bought with my own money, back on the C64. Well, the C128, in C64 mode. This was back when you saved your game directly to the floppy the game was on; I can remember getting myself into the kind of irrevocably fucked situations you find in traditionalist RPGs, thinking I'd basically lost a summer, when I found a recent save on the other side of the disc. I literally went and hugged my mom.

Wasteland 2 is out now, and for the type of game it is - the videogame equivalent of a fetish, practically speaking - it's getting crazy love. I played it enough during beta to know that I wanted to play it "for real," that is to say, after it had molted and chewed its way out of the sac, its carapace agleam. Sometimes, I don't mind early. Nuclear Throne, an algorithmic action roguelike thing, I can play the shit out of that while its still soft in the middle. Roguelikes are especially good at being played as in progress works - new content simply appears or is integrated in line, sequenced by the fretting little mind at the heart of it. Something with a story, or something whose play is defined by vast, meshed, persistent systems doesn't seem like a good time investment for sane people.

They just dropped a hilariously large changelog for their most recent patch, so dense was its body that I initially thought I was reading a novella about patching. I had notes for the author, certainly, but there was much to like. Characterization needed work. I love seeing it, though; they aren't running away from it. You build trust this way. One more patch, maybe a little work with the shopvac around the edge, and I'm in.

(CW)TB out.