It's all true, actually; the new Thornwatch playtest is completely hands free. Well, hands free for us. You will probably need your hands to roll dice, move characters around, or to physically strike allies who miss vital rolls - preferably with a gnarled old cane. Every other playtest he's ever done has been rigorously controlled, with hypnotically conditioned gamemasters whose subconscious programming ensures an optimal experience every time. Every couple months this process gives him an opportunity to feel terrified in a completely new way.

I know that usually Gabriel does these, but he is drawing a comic at the moment, and it's got every limb of his operating at 100% capacity. Here's the banner:

Apparently, Boston is being reverse terraformed. Initially I avoided looking for weather related information altogether, because I had been told that snow was a social construct and I didn't want to reify it. But pictures of the town I have tilled up in my hesitant online searches are indistinguishable from Hoth, except for the super old woman shoveling her own walk all the way out to the fucking street, in the manner of a boss.

Because I'm still new to Monster Hunter, there's a lot I don't know. I could absolutely look for a FAQ and solve all this stuff immediately, like watching a Raid video, and then I could go in and try to emulate another person's valor. When I hit a true wall - as opposed to being momentarily inconvenienced by my ineptitude - maybe I'll hit it up. But not yet. I haven't felt like this in a very, very long time.

Don't forget that KATIE RICE, winner of STRIP SEARCH and creator of CAMP WEEDONWANTCHA, is running a Kickstarter to get the first volume of Camp Weedonwantcha printed up. She's probably over in her office worrying about it, right now. Let's see what we can do about that.

I should hit up Reddit maybe, but I am fairly certain my co-conspirator is the only person willing to go on record as saying that The Order: 1886 is anything approaching a videogame. He wants me to play it very much, presumably so that I can join his very exclusive cult, but I watched a few YouTube clips and it seems like you don't hack monsters apart and then make hats and weapons out of their guts and white bones. And that's all I care about right now. So I'll have to get back to him on that.

I finished the Order: 1886 yesterday and I actually really liked the game. All told I think it took me about eight hours which is certainly on the short side but not criminally so. I tend to play games for the art more than the story and the Order is jam packed with beautiful art and smart design. The world they have rendered in this game is so incredible I can’t wait to play another game in the setting. The Order: 1886 feels like the first movie in a trilogy to me. This is the origin story and the character we are left with at the end of the game is one I want to play as.

We have to entertain, at least for a moment, the idea that he just wanted to draw Samus Aran. But he had also played Pokemon Shuffle in this new era of torrid, Nintendo lust inaugurated by the refresh to the 3DS hardware, and he was surprised to see the more or less "traditional" F2P grotesqueries on display.

The Pin Quest has been posted over on the official Pinny Arcade site. If you want an easy way to see all the pins at the show and how to get them you can grab it now. Just print out the Pin Quest and bring it with you to the show. It's got check boxes so you can track your progress. There's a lot of pins this year so good luck!

Monster Hunter is completely, utterly its own thing. I could try to describe it to you in the traditional way, utilizing the form X + Y = G; it's entirely possible that I have already. Except leaving it wooly and strange, like the Monsters one is perpetually Hunting, might be more accurate.

PAX East kicks off on March 6th. It seems as though the East coast is in the midst of some kind of winter Armageddon but let’s be honest, it’s not like any of us were gonna go outside anyway. I just want to drink hot chocolate and play games all weekend. It was announced yesterday that one of those games will be Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, Acquisitions Inc. is returning to Boston on March 8th at 1:30 pm in the main theater. Here’s the blurb from the official site.

I let Paul Taylor from Mode 7 take over the post awhile ago when they were working on Frozen Synapse, which (and I'm sure he would hate this) I think of as a Roguelike, but for tactical combat. A lot has happened since then. The game has since been brought over to the Vita, and he's been transformed into a husband, a man now known as Paul Kilduff-Taylor. They also just released Frozen Endzone - excuse me, Frozen Cortex - which is a Tycho game, for better or worse. Probably worse for them. I've mentioned that the Indie cadre is completely obsessed with sport at the moment, specifically with its legibility and arcade immediacy, but what Mode 7 did instead was to make turn-based robo-rugby. They could have just made a sequel to the game everybody already liked, but nooooooo. So now they've made the wrong turn at virtually every juncture, and are almost certainly doomed. If they have McDonalds in the UK, they'll no doubt be very familiar with it soon - and not as customers, if you get my meaning. They'll be working there because they are completely out of money as a result of their bad choices. I let him post here again because I thought it would make a nice epitaph, but as you'll soon see, it's far, far too long.

PAX East is coming up in just a few weeks and it's going to be a huge show for pins. Here's the scoop!

I’ve never liked the time=quality argument that some people seem to want to apply to games. I took a look at my Destiny profile this morning and I’ve spent about 140 hours on that game. If you don’t count World of Warcraft I think that’s probably a new record for me. It’s pretty rare that I reach the 100 hour mark in a game. In the past it has only ever happened with Pokemon Diamond and Final Fantasy tactics. I loved those games obviously but I would not say I loved them anymore than a games like Rez, Brothers or Last of Us. At no point do I ever consider the length of time I played a game to be in anyway connected with my enjoyment of it.