I mostly watch Twitch during the big tournaments; unlike my cohort, watching streams never became anything akin to a life practice. Then again, I wasn't aware anyone was doling out "content" with such a novel flesh quotient on a regular schedule. I have certainly found some of the manifestations of this principle in the streams I'm aware of… odd, they're better at LoL than I am, though, so I gotta give props. But there is a well-defined, reliably modeled relationship between the strategically deployed human teat and the pageview. Or is that one of those things you can't say anymore? I'm not always super up to date on my crimethink. In any event, I'mma get mine.

Or, and this may be more likely, not get it.

I might be able to fill a month or two just with recollections about the games I checked out at PAX; in the manner of choice meats, or, for the vegetarians among you… asparagus(?), Indie and "triple a" games marbled the entire floor. So I can be looking at Bayonetta 2, turn around, and then walk into a kind of Indie "mesh" from which I can barely escape. Something Gabriel demanded I check out was Bearzerkers, which was apparently a Kickstarter, but I'd never heard of it. It's a multiplayer arena game, WITH A TWIST I'm kidding. But there is a twist! The battle arena "space" is being relentlessly plumbed at that scale of development right now, but in other hands and with less care this would not be what it is. You play little rolling armadillos, at least, I think they're armadillos. You are rolling desperately away from savage pandas which are being airdropped at regular intervals so that there are always more pandas. There are powerups you can get to mix things up, but the main way you're going to win this game is not by harming players directly but by causing them to be harmed by digging up walls and boxing your "friends" in with these carnivores. Bears by themselves will break right through those, they don't actually care that much, but they're completely impassable to your delicious friends so the ancient and beautiful dance of panda and armadillo is rapidly enabled. There was a co-op maze race mode called Spiral that I didn't get a chance to play, but whatever. I would have bought it right there if I could. I'll let you know when it hits Early Access.

TechAssault was at the show last year, and I think everybody at Penny Arcade played it but me last time, but this year they were out on "The Promenade." I specifically, scrupulously avoided the area during the show on account of the taps I knew they'd have at that brauhaus thing they had out there. But just before they did teardown after the show, we were able to get a round in. TechAssault is basically "super laser tag," laser tag is cool, but imagine that you had endeavored to create hybrid stock with vital Paintball and videogame DNA. What that means for players is sophisticated, substantial, realistic weapons, and cool modes inspired by the classics. They have a bomb you can arm that needs to have a code put in to deactivate it, and if you don't, it emits infrared damage. They have a bunch of prototypes I saw too, in sturdy 3D printed hulls or hypermodded Nerf weapons, with removable clips that remember their bullets and custom lenses to simulate a weapon's spread. They have events they do on downtown roofs, surrounded by buildings, which is an experience I need etched into my brain. One of the things that makes me look forward to new shows down there now is gonna be watching how their tech progresses each year.

(CW)TB out.