We salute those who are now serving their fandom in San Diego.

The only reason I authorized this hateful, anti-Ballard propaganda is that it is deeply true.

As is known to all, but polite to reiterate, since time immemorial PAX has offered succor to the indie developer with the power of PAX 10. If I had been smart when I was naming it, maybe I would have tried to work in something about "PAX to the Tenth Power" or something. In any event: Here are your winners! Be sure to track them down at the show, and investigate this game garden curated by a phalanx of industry professionals.

We play Paladins every night. We were curious about Realm Royale at one point, which we haven't played since it launched, because we got slurped into the rest of their ecosystem somehow. Now we're in its fuckin' jaws to the extent that Gabriel is watching developer livestreams and shit.

And so, after going through all the stages of grief or whatever, young Gabriel emerged stronger and armed with talk show platitudes.

Certainly Mork has played it, and now I have as well. That is to say, The Crew 2. It's interesting. I'd love to talk about it.

It’s been a long time coming but I’m happy to announce that You can now pre-order Thornwatch and the Expansion the Dark of the Wood from the Penny Arcade store. We will be shipping them out at the end of the month on July 31st. So if you missed out on the Kickstarter, this is your chance to get your hands on a copy!

There are all these different thresholds you cross in an endeavor like this, and the newest one for Thornwatch is that preorders for Thornwatch: Eyrewood Adventures go up on the store tomorrow, July 10th. They should ship at the end of the month, after the international games have hit distribution from the Kickstarter.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing the Crew 2 over the last few days. I picked it up last week but didn’t end up giving it a try right away. I was working from home last Wednesday when I heard my boys downstairs load it up and I decided to let them have first crack at it. It took me a few hours to draw the comic and the entire time I could hear them downstairs laughing and passing the controller back and forth. By the time I came downstairs they were ready to gush about how rad this game was. I let them teach me the basics and by that evening I had purchased two more copies so the three of us could race together.

I can remember watching the stuff coming out of Nintendo a little while ago for the Pokemon: Let's Go series, the two Switchy ones that feature Pikachu and Eevee respectively. My mouth hung open a little bit. Among other things, here's what they managed to do: make the iPhone a Nintendo peripheral.

I watched enough of the first episode of The Expanse to know that I should be reading the books; when I grabbed the first three in a boxed set a couple months later, I'd only read about a quarter of it before I breathlessly invoked Article G of the Friendship Accords to push it on Mike.

When we were writing the strip originally, it was on a completely different topic. But when the topic of the Symmetra rework came up, it was clearly like I had jostled a sore tooth. I decided that these perpetual torments might be a superior topic.

I got blown up over it in chat; I'd bought the Battle Pass with real money, but I hadn't taken the time to purchase any items between rounds (LOL or DOTA style) with pretend money, which was an irony too great for their mind to contain all at once.

I can help explain the dad joke phenomenon, I think. I may be uniquely qualified to do so.

I consistently buy and play them - the newest Smash on the 3DS reliably generated its martial slapstick. But I would be lying right to your face if I said I've ever been able to authentically conceive of the activity within the game. I still play it! I still have fun. I still play as Samus Aran and fire charge shots from the other side of the map. But it's like a kind of quantum puppet show and I could not explain it to you.

The wonder-working power of the personal computer as a game platform has continued to unfold, a fluid neon origami trick, in Gabriel's life. Among other things, which include the absorption of indie excursions I wouldn't even go near, he's now in a position to try Overwatch content while it's still dough in the middle.