Hue And Cry

I've been trying to have a beer with Kim Swift for about five years now, and it finally happened. She suggested The Bine up in Bothell, and you should draft on that suggestion. I'm afraid I made a pun there without meaning to. But it's also real close to Zulu's, a place you might want to be anyway. Anywhoozle, the last half of the meetup was just her breaking down how Pokopia is a masterclass of game design. A little while later, a sheepish server came over and said, "I don't want to interrupt… but were you talking about Pokopia?"

She was.

I want to make a post about how great Pokopia is but it will have to be quick because I want to get back to playing Pokopia. So here are three reasons why it’s awesome.

Because Gabriel does not share my Word Disease, depriving him of vital tools for living, the callow young were able to scourge him mostly unawares. In contrast, I'm lowkenuinely bricked up. Actually, hang on. I might have to do a couple searches.

Let me show you them.

(CW)TB

Fear not - the grim spectre of continuity will not long darken our doorway. In fact, continuity just put on its hat and coat and is even now walking out the door. Good riddance! Hope that's the last we see of him for a while. But Pokopia is from the team that co-did Dragon Quest Builders 2, which is a game that bored through both our skulls and laid a clutch of glistening eggs. They didn't end up hatching, but still. And I think they might have dried out. When I walk down the steps I sound like a huge maraca.

Here is the second Child's Play Strip! We decided to go diegetic wit it.

I installed Overwatch so I could look at all the cool art and new shit, but I haven't - in the manner of a dope emcee - gone hard. Because we must always be maximally opposite at all times, he is joining some back-alley offshoot of the old Overwatch League. At least, I assume. Certainly he's playing enough to experience the fluttering ups and downs of the backend - occasionally being catapulted into strange bliss. Certainly, voice chat was already off. That's the default. But occasionally, wicked men attack with words - the last refuge of the scoundrel. As I know only too well.

I had sent Murgh an image on his phone, which...  I mean, I guess I can just show it to you.  It's gonna make a lot of sense when you see the strip:

We are occasionally exposed to Mysterious Benefactors, ones who materialize out of a vapour or maybe get dressed up all fancy-like and come to a Child's Play Dinner. People can purchase an appearance in a strip, which is funny, because generally speaking - given the era - people would have spent money to not appear in one, especially around launch. Weirdly, that's essentially what today's cool man did. But these luminous beings, hybrid creatures fashioned from a medieval patron and God's own angels, they want to support the mission of Child's Play Charity. Here's an example of what they looks like today:

This sort of thing is mega-codified these days, turnkey as it were; he hasn't bit the bullet yet, but he's taking it so Goddamn serious that he's begun requesting fit checks from electronical strangers.

I didn't actually pay for a coach but I sure could use some advice! I play tank, Rein and Ram and I am a silver player but would like to get better. Gonna drop a few replays here and if any of you guys want to help an old man improve please do. N1J8YT NVZE6B HN720N

— Gabe (@cwgabriel.bsky.social) February 23, 2026 at 9:37 AM

Today is the 40th anniversary of Zelda, so I thought I would post the official comic we got to do for Skyward Sword!

Reeking cryptids Skunkape Games, not content to merely exhume the Sam & Max classics, have now turned their profane, necrophile lust toward the beloved Poker Night At The Inventory. Inexplicably, my alter ego is featured in this game and continues to be even after these warlocks completed their dark ritual.  But we love to challenge the reader - and lies are a great way to start.

Sixteen years ago one day, I was walking down the street - you know how it is.

Fortnite oversaw the transition of Battle Royale from game to genre, and I think ARC Raiders performed the same trick for Extraction - and in a very similar way. Tarkov and PUBG are both loping, all fours, half-clad man beasts with their dicks out in a public park. Their own skin feels too tight, somehow; they're scratching themselves on the rough bark of trees just to get a moment of release. Fortnite and ARC Raiders are, by way of comparison, videogames.

I think we have to just establish - verbally, conceptually - that we have entered into a kind of vortex where traditional assumptions about the industry have been annihilated. Megafauna are collapsing under their own weight; they're loaning their treasured IP to tiny, scampering creatures so that something useful might be done with it at all. They're slicing and sectioning themselves into charcuterie boards, or tarting themselves up for handsome saviors. The return of the demo, an attempt to thumb the scale in a world where making a good game appears to be a solved problem but people knowing you exist is increasingly impossible, means I've bought more games in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years. Escapees from "triple a" have gnawed at its root, drawing from it a dark strength. Or, you know, gotten utterly annihilated. Like I said: Vortex.

Time was, people would say that you had to read the newspost to know what the comic was about - like that was a bad thing! As the author of the newspost, I have a natural impetus to craft the kind of strip which requires an independent Stone of Hammurabi to help interpret it; a conceptual side order. The thing about today's strip is that you will find absolutely no succor in these words - no nourishment. It's inspiration is almost impossible to explain, it must be experienced viscerally. Brenna was only able to watch it for ten seconds. How far will you get?

 

 

 

 

 

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