Despite all the discourse, I was not prepared for just how cool Girl Frame is from a game design perspective. I'm a failure of a trans lesbian who hasn't read a word of Warhound; it still blew my mind just reading through it. I've never wanted to play an RPG I *know* I'd suck at this badly before.

#EventsDearBoy 7. INFERNO (1988, Marvel) Hell hath no fury like a creator (of strong women characters) scorned. Ordered to kill off his supporting character Madelyne Pryor, Chris Claremont did so in the most rageful way possible and turned her into a fan icon

Tom Ewing@tomewing.bsky.social · 5d ago

#EventsDearBoy 8. SECRET WARS (2015, Marvel) The ultimate event. 200-plus tie-ins, Marvel publishing nothing else for months, and the grand resolution of Jonathan Hickman's "multiversal collapse" story. It's a lot!

Trying to fill out this survey without accidentally appearing to endorse the expansion is a genuine challenge. There's push polling and then there's weird public opinion puzzle games.

Shawn Micallef@shawnmicallef.bsky.social · 2w ago

The flakey sketchy anon survey monkey (!) the federal government put out on the Island Airport, their "consultation," ends Friday. If you haven't yet be sure to still fill it out. There are places you can add your own thoughts like "this survey is faulty and skews towards done deal" and etc.

I semi-regularly use the island airport, and I had to throw my hands up and quit this obviously slanted survey halfway through because they kept lumping *all* improvements to the airport or “passenger experience” with lengthened runways, and it isn’t remotely subtle what they’re trying to do.

Shawn Micallef@shawnmicallef.bsky.social · 2w ago

The flakey sketchy anon survey monkey (!) the federal government put out on the Island Airport, their "consultation," ends Friday. If you haven't yet be sure to still fill it out. There are places you can add your own thoughts like "this survey is faulty and skews towards done deal" and etc.

Shoutout to the SSPX bro on /r/Christianity desperately trying to deny that he's just been excommunicated, gotta be one of my favourite stages of grief.

This sort of thing annoys me to no end, because the thing about vampires is that they aren't originally about any one specific thing. They're about anything that the fear of a risen dead thing that sucks blood with hideous intimacy can mean. Which is, as we have seen, a lot of things!

Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints@moralconstraints.bsky.social · last mo.

"Vampires were originally about capitalism and have been ruined by the sex stuff" Read Carmilla you ignorant and odious philistines

PSA to people on Instagram: people who don’t have Instagram can’t see your posts! They see a login prompt. That information about your business or your event? Literally inaccessible

I love an immersive VR inventory system as much as the next colossal dork, but developers, please double check that your game does not require a decent percentage of players to punch themselves directly in the tit every time they want to use a flashlight.

Just got recommended a YouTube video discussing a book, only the creator used the new built-in AI thumbnail generator. so instead of showing the actual cover, it has a weird imitation with incorrect authors' names. Glad to live in the era of the one click "make this incredibly shitty" solution.

Sundered Isles, the excellent fantasy age of sail expansion for Ironaworn: Starforged, is 60% off today. Includes guidance on using the system for sky ships or Treasure Planet-style games, plus a lot of material is super useful for the original scifi setting. www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/4...

Sundered Isles - Expansion for Ironsworn: Starforged - Shawn Tomkin | DriveThruRPG

SEAFARING ADVENTURES FOR IRONSWORN: STARFORGED Sundered Isles is an epic expansion for the Ironsworn: Starforged tabletop roleplaying game. It includes new gameplay and character options, inspiring wo...

drivethrurpg.com

Progessive Christian media can be a wild ride. Listen to five episodes of a podcast confronting misogyny and abuse and then get hit by "Heartwarming: Spousal abuse survivor spent decades painting a Saint praised for never 'gossiping' about her abusive husband and repenting of the sin of remarriage."

This is a great article about choice in games, and I'll add my one bit of craft: if you ask the player what color their eyes are in chapter 1, and then mention their ${eye_color} eyes in a mirror in chapter 4, people will think you're amazing, they'll treat you like a damn mentalist.

Bruno Dias@brunodias.dev · last mo.

New blog post (and sliding into email subscribers' inboxes too, I have not forgotten about you). About "that talk" at Narrascope; the application of choice mechanics in games; trying to rescue some context. azhdarchid.com/you-must-fre...

Duskers is getting a sequel! 10 years later 😅 The Steam post has more info, including the new teaser trailer - featuring the voice of Deonte (our producer). You can even wishlist it on Steam if you're into that sorta thing 😉 steamcommunity.com/games/254320...

Steam :: Duskers :: Duskers Is Getting A Sequel!

Incredibly excited to say that, after 10 years, we're finally returning to the desolation of space to revisit the universe of Duskers! For starters check out it's shiny new Steam Page (wishlist it!), ...

steamcommunity.com

Disclosure Day is almost impressive in its ability to be multiple, seemingly contradictory, kinds of bad at the same time.

Marathon is free to play this week. It is the best video game I have played this decade. I know people who have never seriously played an FPS who have cleared Compiler multiple times; it really is not as intimidating as it maybe sounds, it just helps a lot to have friends. Join us on Tau Ceti IV!

Marathon@marathonthegame.bungie.net · 2mo ago

New to Marathon? We've summarized the game loop to help you find your footing in your first few runs. For more tutorials, head to our playlist on Youtube: bung.ie/4at7u8G

Just finished Lovecraft Investigations' season on Crowley, which is fun, informative and makes an extremely strong case for replacing all podcasters with paid actors.

I’m not sure language exists for how fucked up this is. If you don’t wanna click through: it’s a site devoted to scaremongering about and aggressively—literally—dehumanizing immigrants.

Alejandra Caraballo@esqueer.net · 2mo ago

This is real. www.whitehouse.gov/aliens/

This is the grammatical equivalent of being made unwilling aware of your own breathing. I may never be able to string a natural sentence together again.

Axe Thembro@axethembro.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sent it to a friend a few weeks back so I got it handy!

Checking out Diablo 4 again and it turns out I wasn't just biased against the new game on release, they really did respond to people complaining D3 wasn't sufficiently dark and serious by stripping the player characters of all personality.

Bleh, sad to discover that Starminer is a cool, fun game with otherwise strong art direction ruined by the inexplicable decision to throw in entirely unnecessary AI-generated images.

Finally reading the Conan stories and realizing: A. They're way more interesting than I expected. B. They're unfortunately also even more racist than I expected. C. Apparently nobody who uses the phrase "sword and sorcery" in relation to RPGs has actually read a word written by Robert E. Howard.

Once again begging everyone to actually read a document put out by the Catholic Church before gushing over it based on vibes and pull quotes. Because I regret to inform you that Milkshake Encyclical is homophobic.

Since the concept is being misunderstood and misused, let's talk about what "third-sexing" means as a mechanism of transphobia. I built on an idea first discussed in @juliaserano.bsky.social's "Whipping Girl" that discussed how, interpersonally, cis people refuse to acknowledge our genders.

The Third Sex

“The Gender Binary” is a misnomer; gender has always been a hierarchy.

taliabhattwrites.substack.com

I can't believe how many politicians are saying "let's ban trans people from public life, but in a way that is respectful". Are you fucking thick? Who is this for?

Not unexpected, but still an awful state of affairs for a studio that's created so many great games and *just* released another.

Jason Schreier@jasonschreier.bsky.social · 3mo ago

NEW: Bungie is planning a significant layoff following the end of Destiny 2's development. Destiny 3 is NOT in active production. Some Bungie staff are pitching and prototyping new ideas including Destiny games, but none are yet greenlit. Story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I simply do not think it is meaningful or useful to pick apart every aspect of people's lives in isolation for their moral content, as if someone opting for a convenient delivery meal instead of the Virtuous Toil of Cooking is a decision that happens in a vacuum.

"I denied your ad request on BGG because I spend my free time curing demonic possession, and also I think you shouldn't publish your game which I think you made in ignorance of the real depravity of Satan and his works" is a fucking insane thing to write in an email www.reddit.com/r/boardgames...

From the boardgames community on Reddit: Tried advertising on Boardgamegeek and got this as a response.

Explore this post and more from the boardgames community

reddit.com

What non-superhero fans don't understand about my love for superhero comics is that they are weird and they used to be even weirder. I don't like MCU so much. I like that comic runs used to go on for like 100 issues and the whole time I'd be like, what the Hell am I reading???

Not sure I'd describe Toronto's tick season as "off to a very strong start". Whose side are you on, entomologist?

Toronto Star@thestar.com · 3mo ago

Ontario’s tick season is off to a “very strong start” thanks to recent weather patterns, says entomologist Jade Savage. Last winter was relatively warm, and it’s been a cool spring so far. “Blacklegged ticks really like this sort of weather,” Savage said. Read more: trib.al/DgUpFba

on a related note: i think for sure we hold indie creators to a much higher political standard. sometimes you'll see people criticize queer art for being insufficiently radical, and then immediately go and play the latest pokémon game or whatever

𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚 🐟@sinland.gay · 3mo ago

I think there's a sorta critique I see often that, when taken to its logical extreme, essentially boils down to there being no truely good or admirable stories except those about oppressed characters doing revolution. Those stories are fine, but I do think it's a bad metric to hold all media up to.