My son Gabe invited a few of his friends to PAX this year and the group of them set off to experience the show on their own for the first time. They came back raving about a game they saw called Lightseekers that I had heard of and thought was a “Toys to Life” sort of thing I'd heard about on Kickstarter. I have to admit that after Disney Infinity kicked the bucket I sort of figured the genre was dead. I mean, if Disney can’t make it work who can? I let them take me over to the booth the next day though and I am glad I did because “Toys to Life” doesn’t really do Lightseekers justice.

E3 was always a very safe show, money-wise - it's a fully operational media battle station, as opposed to a mall. You're supposed to go and salivate in anticipation of a meal six months hence. That's not necessarily true at a PAX show, partly because of its origin as a community show like a Comic or Anime convention. The Expo Floor is really an outgrowth of the Dealer's Rooms we used to be situated in, where one could quite easily purchase a comic where Malfoy spanks Harry or, indeed, a paddle and the accoutrements required to recreate such scenes in the home.

I added the part about Raid Gear, but I understand a conversation very much like this happened last night. By the time I joined Gabe and Kara online, what you might call our Classic Fireteam Configuration, Gabriel The Younger had already been exiled to the Darklands, where youths play not.

It's always a little surprising to be writing a newspost in the middle of a PAX, but, you know. It's four days now. PAX East is gonna be four days now, too - did you hear? It'll be starting on the Thursday of that week.

The new Madden's "Longshot" campaign is really interesting to me. Not, like, "buy Madden" interesting. Let's not get carried away. But the weak and callow Gabriel has - again - failed in precisely this way.

Grob emerged from Call Of Duty: WWII with a lot of good things to say. I don't know about it, because instead of playing a AAA game that costs tens of millions of dollars I'm playing a Nintendo Switch port of a two year old PC matching puzzle game.

Mike Selinker over at Lone Shark games has posted a big update to the Thornwatch Kickstarter. I still have two pieces of art to wrap up but both of them are for the Dark of the Wood expansion. The requirements for this game have pushed me to draw outside my comfort zone at times. Taking the Judges and turning them into avatars with unique abilities was a ton of fun and I love thinking of them as the Eyrewood's pantheon. Drawing them has been a challenge for me though as it's just not the sort of thing I tend to draw. Thornwatch has been full of challenges like that though and I am really proud of how it's all come together. I've never created this much art for a single project before and I can't wait for you all to see it. If you'd like a sneak peek at some of the artwork I've been doing for this game you should hit up my Instagram.

I'm back from Spokane - whole of body, but perhaps not whole of mind.

Polygon did in fact have to change their article about Apocrypha, and I am pleased, plus technically (as I am being told on Twitter) it should be "lupursine." I was trying to come up with something that sucked really bad, though, and being profoundly incorrect is certainly one way to suck.

Patrick has been a friend of ours forever, and as proof of this immutable bond he'll be joining us tonight for another episode of The "C" team with his half-orc dilettante. Hit up HyperRPG's Twitch and drink deeply.

I bounced off LawBreakers, and - like usual - I'm happy to accept the blame. I couldn't find it; it's possible I didn't try hard enough. It's also possible that there is more than one game out right now. I haven't checked, but I feel confident.

I remember when I first conceived the idea of stealing the idea of pin trading from Disney. I hoped that some day it would grow beyond just our Penny Arcade characters and cover all the things we love about games and comics and nerd shit. Never in my wildest imagination could I have foreseen someone at PAX West 2017 trading Garfield and Master Chief. This is seriously an incredible group of pins and I love that a few of them are for good causes. Speaking of which, I did draw the Take This pin. Gamers and mental health are very close to my heart, so I hope you'll go pick up the pin and support the work they do. Also I still can't believe we have a Mario pins! Here, check out all the pinsanity at PAX this year:

My oldest son Gabe is about to turn thirteen and already I can feel him emitting powerful teenager angst rays. One of the things he wanted for this momentous birthday was for me to run a D&D game for his group of friends. Well I ran it on Friday and I have to say that running D&D for twelve year olds is the absolute best thing ever. Especially when it’s everyone's first game and they have no fucking idea what to expect.

It's coming up fast - only an hour or so until noon PDT. Drop some Qs in here!

Sonic fandom is a robust and layered thing.

Hey! I had a couple requests for this on the Twitch channel, and here it is if you have any questions. We've been putting out a lot of new work lately, on various channels, so it's worth getting this in front of you if you're curious about one or more of our nefarious tendrils.