I'm sure that Ziply Fiber is perfectly acceptable most of the time, but Mork has a unique talent for finding himself nestled in the deepest, most aberrant statistical realms. Just as an example: he and a friend of his, in lieu of intersecting with a framework that was clearly trying to digest him, managed to enter a parallel universe where .jpegs about the human peepee could be used in lieu of currency.

Our favorite part about it was just that it happened at all. He was utterly finished thinking about it, believing - correctly! - that he had ordered something impossible, like a prosciutto spaceship. There would be no savory moon journeys on a vessel that could be eaten on arrival, and that was okay. We were just trying to imagine what could possibly be the impetus, and I'm glad, because that gave us the strip.

The post is way later than I intended it to be, and it's entirely because of Deadlink, which is five bucks off currently. It's easily worth ten dollars more than they sold it for, and they'll sell it to you for half that apparently. I think it's possible they don't know good their game is.

Gabe really, really doesn't like roguelike type stuff. He plays games to be exposed to new art, and so there's a while in a game of that kind where his reward pathways are ice cold. You aren't gonna get him with a good hook, either. He knows that words are the last refuge of the scoundrel - I won't say how. So, think about how good a game in that context has to be in order for him to not only tolerate it but to harangue others.

These things distinguish themselves in terms of genre and a couple key mechanics, and what they've done here is a really addictive… "loop" feels insufficient. It's more like a coil, or spring. The core thing is that enemies can be put into a "marked" state in a variety of ways, and killing them in this state turns them into Doom 2016-style pinatas. I will never not like it when I destroy an enemy and they're transformed into a rain of appetizers for a 401k or some shit.

That would be a great hook by itself, as long as the weapons and traversal are solid, and they fuckin' are. It's masterful. It's not even worth discussing anymore: they have an instinct for what is correct in this space and they've lathed every millimeter of material that doesn't sell the fantasy completely off. But your upgrades! Holy shit, the upgrades.

These chippy, appropriately "cyber" upgrades get plugged into your gameplay in a way that has me completely sold. It's a shooter, so obviously you're shooting stuff. But with the default character, there are essentially four "verbs" to the gameplay:

- Switching Weapons
- Throwing out a grapple chain that marks enemies
- Emitting an AOE marking "wave"
- Breaking These Little Ball Things

And it's those gameplay events you attach the upgrades to.  And each player archetype you unlock swaps out those middle two!

So you're essentially building little combos into your gameplay while you progress in power - you can add a variety of cool effects to that wave, for example. That hook pulls you to the target, marks them, and stuns them - so it would be a great opportunity to buff damage on your primary right when you need it. There are other twists in that system, and more global upgrades as well, but I don't want to take anything from you. Go find out.

There's a whole demo you can grab if you want to see what I mean, but I should warn you that I thought the demo would be enough - an amuse bouche situation - and it was not enough. You can buy it and save yourself some time.

(CW)TB out.