Penny Arcade

Mike Fehlauher, a man who literally a sword forged to wear at his wedding, stands astride this world and the next.  This is an ennobling way to say that he is a huge dork.  I called him over the weekend to see if he wanted to press on in our Orcs Must Die 2 campaign, but he didn’t answer because he was drinking in the woods with someone literally dressed as an orc.  The whole scenario makes me question his dedication, frankly.

But he has a way of describing the kind of fantasy he likes to run at the table, the kind his players savor, and when he allows me to I like to assist him in the embroidery of same.  He describes it as “van art” fantasy; that is to say, the kind of fantasy that would look incredibly sweet airbrushed on the side of a van.

There are elements of Darksiders 2 (or “II,” which is pronounced “twooooooooo”) that subscribe to this sweet, some might say bitchin’ aesthetic.  Death here with the Death Mask covered with Skulls n’ Shit secretes it - this “fluid” crawls languorously from the tap.  And then there’s stuff that is decidedly not that, very nearby: architectural feats the mind reads as real, somehow.  Mythic iconography taken shape.  This game is a book, and Mr. Death Face is the cover; keep the old adage close-by.

We are having an incredibly difficult time staying focused on “the coin,” the little UI boinkazoink that tells us what a responsible harbinger would be doing right now.  But we can’t!  There are dungeons jammed way, way up his thing’s ass.  The addition of loot, wholly unnecessary but profoundly welcome, makes these detours irresistible - anything to get ahead of the curve.  And with weapons that eat other weapons, you want a constant supply of food.  Don’t forget that the game is, at it’s core, a Legend of Zelda styled adventure.  You are slowly accruing the tools to master the environment, a satisfying arc on its own, sufficient to yoke the mind.

  Imagine some inveterate cackler appending randomized loot to that potent mix.  That person would be a criminal.  This is a person people would get together and hang from a lamppost.

(CW)TB out.

escape, escape, escape

Our Kickstarter will be closing here in just about two hours. As I type this we are nearing the $500k level. We’ve managed to raise a half million dollars towards the goal of an ad free Penny Arcade. That’s just incredible and I want to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who pledged. We got very close to all ads removed from the front page of the site. As it stands we’ve raised enough to remove the top banner advertisement next year. We will also be creating a new Automata comic. Tycho will be dressed as the Fruit Fucker at PAX and we will start filming the Strip Search web show this fall!

It doesn’t look like we’ll hit the Lookouts goal. The idea was that if we raised enough money we could replace projects for advertisers with our own stuff. Right now if I’m not drawing Penny Arcade I’m drawing something for an advertiser. That’s why if we do the CTS or Automata, it takes the place of the normal PA comic. We’ve decided that this Daughters of the Eyrewood story is too cool not to make though. So even though we didn’t fund it, we will be producing the Daughters comic and It will take the place of a PA presents project. That means it will be a stand alone project that will run alongside the normal PA comic rather than instead of it.

As for some of the other projects on the list, we will see what we can do. We might be able to get advertisers to pay for some of them. Maybe we can record the DLC podcast from inside the surprisingly spacious trunk of a Chevy Volt?

Advertising isn’t the end of the world. We’ve managed to make it work and we’ve tried to do it in a way that doesn’t insult you. As of right now I consider the Kickstarter to have succeeded in creating a sort of hybrid rather than replacing ads all together. It’s something we will keep thinking about and you might see us approach the same goal in a new way next year.

-Gabe out