I am surprised virtually on a daily basis to find that my memories are all my memories.

They don't seem like it. I wouldn't have done the things this other person did. Well, except for hooking up after a D&D session. That's still on the table, which is a double entendre obviously. Occasionally I can muster sympathy for that folded-in creature, and say that he did those things because the options available were constrained. It's a fairly common mechanism for deceiving oneself. The reality is that I had a dilapidated framework for assessing the priority of a given activity.

Okay, so, this is the Golden Age. I've never been so happy. I mentioned it in passing before, but I only gave a couple examples. I didn't even mention Card Hunter, which is a game that keeps me up far too late, withering my ancient husk until the bark peels clean off.

I could write an unlimited amount, but I won't. I will write about a very specific thing: deckbuilding, as a mechanic. Games like Dominion or Ascension successfully made the intricate metagame of a CCG into the main event, with (what started as) single boxes that contained a gradient of playstyles. Even so, systemically, this is still deeply intimidating to most people. Ascension's limited auction size makes it more inviting, but still: you can fall right through the floor of those games. There's a lot going on. It's scary.

It is; it just is.

Card Hunter breaks the whole fucking thing wide open. You make decks, oh yes. But you don't make them card by card, in the granular way of the genre or its hierarchs. You get loot like in Diablo. That loot represents certain capabilities. These capabilities are represented by cards. You build your deck by getting dressed. You go out in your new clothes and play fun tactical adventures which help you get even more clothes. These fucking people, man.

This is an example of a game which costs NO MONEY to play. No compulsory money. You'll pay them, though. You'll pay them because they markedly improved your life, which is at least as good a reason as we have now.

I hardly know what to say about the Kickstarter for the revitalized Podcast initiative. That site is profoundly weird, and it's not entirely clear who is going to bite on what. There are many, many things we can do with the hours that remain in the day. Most of them involve working with Other People's Stuff, which I think we've been able to do well. When we have the choice, though, we would rather make more Penny Arcade. And that is a choice you've allowed us to undertake.

(CW)TB out.