Thank you to everyone who voted for your favortie new IP over the last few days!

I did live with Gabriel for a time, in the hallow'd Apartment 26 which so often made its appearance in the early days, and for the most part it was pretty good. There were some instances of roommate terrorism, but I would say these were universally oriented toward my compatriot, because I've never really understood how to be a person. That said, when he did finally move out - and Brenna moved in, because our formerly tawdry union had been sanctified by marriage - his bathroom was in a fucking haunted state. He neglected to inform me that this sink did not drain, as is traditional for sinks. In fact, even a flush of the toilet would result in a black, rank, presumably sentient ichor rising to fill it a third of the way up. It would then take its own sweet time going down, thick bubbles rising, speaking in a wet voice.

I’ve played a bit of Star Wars Shatterpoint now and I feel comfortable giving you some initial impressions of the game. I’m playing this with my son Noah who is 13 and currently in the midst of an obsession with Star Wars that only a 13 year old is capable of. 

Having mastered one of the virtumal realmz, Gabriel has sought a second throne in another - that of Poker Stars VR.  He's not in there playing Poker, though - there's a bunch of games in there, and he's been a Blackjack player anytime he's in a casino, I assume because he keeps winning and just doesn't stop winning.  I wonder why more poeple don't try to emulate his strategy.  There's a Den of Sin across the street from PAX Aus, and once he was playing Blackjack so hard and so well that <i>I shit you not</i> people stopped asking for cards and just bet on him.  

When Jerry came over and tried it, he called Gran Turismo 7 in VR his game of the year. I’m willing to wait until after I play Tears of the Kingdom to make that decision. 

I think I'm gonna have to call my friend Gary Whitta - or maybe have him write something for the site - that helps me understand what the WGA is talking about when they talk about "mini-rooms." There is some incredibly baroque, deeply inside baseball stuff when you get into the systems which underpin the development of popular media that only make sense to the acolytes of these doomed halls. And it's partly because people adversarial to the creative process - the very people they're out here pig-wrestling to extract concessions from - have largely defined how it all works.

Which of the three stories we pitched last week will get continued? It's up to you to decide!

This being the fifteenth year of our successful, imaginary adventuring company, there are a few more delights in store for this year - and one of them is CLANK! Legacy 2, again featuring Acquisitions Incorporated, and very much featuring a certain James Winifred Darkmagic III.  The first game is considered by many to be their favorite experience in the Legacy genre, and our second outing with creator Dire Wolf Digital takes things even further.  Like, way further.  It's such a pleasure to work with people who go this hard.  But yeah!  It's up on Kickstarter now, and you can even get it bundled with our first collab if you missed out on it.

(CW)TB

I mean… I like it. President Gorilla. He's a Gorilla, but he's also the President. You know? That's the hook. We think it kinda sets him apart from other Gorillas. Unfortunately, the other two offerings - Songs of Sorcelation: Return of The Returner and WHEEL SAINT - are probably gonna win, and even more unfortunately-er for the longsuffering and bedraggled Sorcelator enthusiast, I think Wheel Saint is one of the coolest things we've ever done. But we'll give you an opportunity to choose (wheel saint) later this week.

Wheel Saint is a new idea with some old roots. One of the first comic book characters I ever created was a teenager named Sam who had an Angel imprisoned in him. I apologize but I was 16 or 17 when I cooked this up. 

As we have suggested many times, Catholicism is a legendary intellectual property in need of a good steward. I've only seen the first three Prophecy movies, but there's some neat shit in there. I guess technically Da Vinci Code uses the IP but in more of a fan fiction way. Allow us to throw our hat into the ring, except in this instance, the "hat" is actually a halo. Welcome to WHEEL SAINT.

wheel Saint! pic.twitter.com/hPttjv1iVH

— Gabe (@cwgabriel) May 5, 2023

Just as in the days of old, we're gonna put a couple pitches in front of you. Historically, this has resulted in some hot shit. Today's is a return to those Sorcelations which have historically been so prized. Friday's is yet to come, but it's worth noting as a preview perhaps that Gabriel and I consider Catholicism to be a criminally underutilized IP.

It seemed like there might be value in containing our meta-conversation stripwise. I'm not entirely convinced that this is an internationally recognized form of well - I don't think IEEE has established a framework around this.

I keep forgetting about the digital portion of The Olympics, but you can't really blame me - it's super, super weird. The Gran Turismo is the most elaborate and simmy of the bunch, which offers something like a competitive framework, but some of these are also, like, apps on your phone. Also, the site is inscribed with incredibly strange language. I don't think we're using cheugy anymore but it's pretty fuckin' cheug'd.

I don't use Twitter like Gorb or Brenna do. I follow 31 people, so scrolling to the top of The Entire Service for me is a very straightforward proposition. And when I'm using the app, I don't have any idea what's trending or what I should be mad at. Gorb and Brenna "play" Twitter like a videogame. They play block-a-mole. They report a motherfucker. They go to people's personal feeds and have their biases confirmed. And when they completely bore out a keyword, they go find another keyword. If Twitter had a foil lid, like a yogurt cup, they would lick the inside of it. My usage pattern having been thus established, and then compared, I have to wonder if I'm a "Twitter user" at all.

A couple years ago I realized that hearing a bird made me happy. That probably seems dumb, but my cognition doesn't work like it should and so it can take me a super long time to arrive at perfectly obvious conclusions. Just as an example: it took me about twenty five years to figure out somebody had clearly come to my house with romantic intentions. A couple weeks ago I was kinda like, "Oh. She probably wasn't super interested in the Amiga." But I was super interested in the Amiga. Too interested? It's hard to say. Given the alternative, it's worth considering.