I backed that fucker back in the day, so I was pleased that one of Garbvaark's hypertrawls of the App Store brought us into belated synchronicity. Generally speaking, what happens in Deep Space stays in Deep Space. It's been fun watching him manage that "unique social environment."

I wonder if he'd like Out There? It's not quite as gamey and immediate, more like a kind of solitaire you play over the lava hole of an active volcano. Which is called a throat, I always thought that was kind of weird. But if you would like to experience the sensation of teetering continually over molten rock until you fall right in, that is basically the whole idea of Out There.

Original Video Content is a tough business, and I can't imagine why they would want to get into that, but Microsoft has decided it wants to and it can certainly afford it. So, you know, do you I guess. What is their dedication to the project in absolute terms, I wonder? This mission was generated under the auspices of somebody who doesn't work there anymore, in accordance with a platform concept that I'm not entirely sure anybody understands. A slate of custom video content as an acquisition strategy for your game service seems… God, I don't even know what that seems.

But… Deadlands? That is an incredibly strange bet. It may be that my cadre has simply assumed control of the apparatus; seeing Cyberpunk 2020 and Deadlands both ascendant is very strange. These were both weird things that weird people did. Deadlands is a place where card-shark wizards and dead gunslingers rob trains whose furnace is stoked with ossified souls. I knew it was special when I played it like twenty years ago, there isn't a week goes by where I don't think about it. Culturally, we're more literate in the weird than we've ever been. Watching these arcs converge is twisting my head around.

(CW)TB out.