All of these things more or less happened when we were playing Sunderfolk and the amount I can get away with as honorary Uncle is profound. Profound!

When Gabriel told me that he hadn't skipped a single cutscene in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I sat bolt upright. Well, I slouched less - let's say that. But when he told me he was walking around and initiating dialogue with random NPCs, just to stretch it out like so many Caramellos, that's when I did the thing I said I had done initially. This is how I came to be ensorcelled by some of the Frenchest horseshit I've ever been exposed to in my life.

Over the last couple of days I’ve checked out two games that were not even on my radar a few weeks ago and I now love. I figured I’d pop in here and give you my quick impressions of Sunderfolk and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. 

Gabriel's family, stuffed as it is with gamers, boardgamers, and wargamers of all stripes, seems uniquely subject to what Sunderfolk is trying to do.

I was delighted to see Indiana Jones and The Great Circle hit Playstation for a few reasons - one, it should always have been a Playstation game. This was a weird one to hold back. Two, the time I've spent with Dabe playing it is some of the most fun I've had this year so far. It's just incredibly thoughtful and has an ongoing franchise play written all over it. Three, I suspected that the PS release might put it on Gabe's radar finally. Which it did! What did he think of it? Let's go to the tape.

Long ago, what YouTube tells me is Seven Years Ago, Gabe ran an episode of my old Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team show. Called simply Jimterlude, because it was a Mike Krahulik DM Experience Tee Em, of course it involved an incredibly elaborate, fully functional board game called Wizard Kart. I want to emphasize that Wizard Kart is our wholly owned, original IP and any resemblance or even direct references to other games are either just some thing you made up or direct attacks on our sovereignty. In either case, they're deeply unwelcome!!!

Steam must have this motherfucker dialed in. Gabe is obsessed with self-published indie weirdness in fiction, and discovered tons of hot shit before it got optioned and made into movies. No doubt his predilection toward pervert horseshit has steered his algo to wash up all manner of strange treasure upon his shore, and the latest is the one he was just telling you about a couple days ago - Supercar Collection Simulator. One of this new wave of retail management games, this one has twisted incentives; it is a tour through the coal-black aorta of Capitalism itself. .

I downloaded Supercar Collection Simulator yesterday and since then I have done little else. I have paused for a moment just long enough to write this post and recommend it. My wife Kara likes these sim style games but until now I have managed to avoid the genre. Now I’m spending all day operating my own collectible toy car store though. That by itself would probably be enough to get me but not only does your store stock blind boxes of various levels full of random toy cars (along with track and other accessories), but these cars all have stats and can be raced against customers on slot car style tracks! Here's the kicker, you can open these boxes yourself and collect the cars! After a day of playing I now have two employees who manage the cash registers all day while I sit in the corner and open blind boxes to fill out my supercar collection. 

-Gabe Out

Apparently, Groogle is using one of their abominable intelligences to communicate with dolphins, presumably to steal their IP. Having skimmed the cream from all of human imagining, new frontiers must be identified - and their moist riches harvested. I guess we'll see how that goes! It's gonna depend a lot on the species I bet.

Chris Perkins leaving Wizards of the Coast didn't surprise me too much and it wouldn't surprise anyone who knew him, as much as I'd like there to be a dishy version. Crawford did throw me for a loop; I sent him a mail whose subject line was "WHAT" and whose body text read "but also whaaaaaat" to make sure my bewilderment was properly registered. But I know him, too. He's been a great friend and ally during some very complex times and my life has been enriched by both of these men. My expectation is that James Wyatt - ironically, the first ever Acquisitions Incorporated DM - will be getting more of the limelight, which he will probably hate. That is the fate of the true dork; you do your dorky thing and then people like the dorky thing and suddenly you are a public person through no fault or design of your own. Alas.

This is all too real. He keeps sending me Yasuke videos that are essentially physical comedy; potent Spartan kicks that lift enemies and launch them from Japan to, I assume, the deep cisterns of Sparta itself. Enemies get caught up in a gentle zephyr and dance and sway in a foul wind. It's orthogonal to the typical experience, but in these map fucking games where you gotta fuck the whole map, sometimes a change of pace might be welcome…?

I saw a video of two puppies howling, and the text 'ertop said that they were "dire wolves resurrected by man's cold god, Science." We were allowed to enjoy this moment for about five minutes before people started coming in with their facts and shit. If you listen to their Chief Science Officer, she will say they are using the "morphological species concept" which means that if it looks like a Dire Wolf and howls like a Dire Wolf, then it's a Dire Wolf. That seems weird to me. Am I dumb? Am I the stupid one, here?

Okay now we're done.

You might be as surprised as we were to learn that dreaded continuity could rear its ugly and reptilian head. Like the mudfish, it had gone dormant in the murk and has only now begun to whip and writhe.

I learned something very important today! You actually have to click "post."

Recently Jerry and I were invited out to Wizards of the Coast headquarters to meet and play Dungeons and Dragons with two young men whose brother had a five year battle with Lymphoma. These boys had made a video about how important D&D was to their family during their brother's illness and how they are now raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.