As you can see by Mike's posts, Thornwatch development continues! While the game is not quite ready for large-scale demoing, we will be conducting a limited playtest at PAX Prime 2014. Playtesters will be drawn from the Thornwatch email list: we'll mail that list Tuesday with a questionnaire (the most important question being, "Do you have a PAX badge"), and randomly select playtesters from qualified respondents on Wednesday.

Brian said people wanted to know what we were bringing to the show, so I got the banner image from Kiko. You can click it, and it will become larger as a result.

His panel is now located in the Main Theatre (Benaroya Hall), and begins at 5 PM on Friday. He has a signing at 6:30 at the Paramount Theatre later that night.

The things people are willing to enter into text fields perpetually surprises me.

We've got a thing going right now where we are doing that. So, any Penny Arcade Print or Print Set from the store will get signed, and of course any of the daily strips. If you have liked one, or you think for some inexplicable reason that another person might like it, the orange button in the upper right of any comic will take you to the store. Okay, that's it. See you around.

There's a new playtest for Thornwatch coming to PAX Prime, one that plays around with the systems a little bit. Jamie had an idea counter to a decision on the game's fundamental focus, and she proved that contentious ground with an adventure. That adventure forms the core of what you might play at Prime. I'll let him do the rest of it, but I will also put a link to the newsletter sign-up because newsletter subs are how he determines his worth as a person now. Well, newsletter subs, and maintaining an atmosphere of psychological terror.

The Thornwatch “design team” is really just five people. There’s me obviously but I've got help from Kiko, Jamie, Fehlauer, and Kenneth. It’s still sort of a side project so a lot of the work we do on it happens over lunch. We pick a restaurant near the office and work out whatever design issues need to get resolved. I did not plan it this way when assembling my team but they are all very different types of gamers and so we end up getting a lot of really great points of view. Kiko and Kenneth are all about clear and concise rules and mechanics while Jamie and Feh tend to be more interested in the “feel” of the game and the story elements. I usually end up listening to both sides and then make a final decision. I have my own ideas about how the game should work but I honestly really love being convinced of a better solution.

The kids on the server made their statues out of wool, presumably for the wide range of colors. Their intense flammability was, we can guess, not conscious portion of the decision matrix.

My son Gabe has a Minecraft Realm that he and his friends play on. It’s a service that Mojang offers allowing you to rent a private server. You need to specifically invite people to the server otherwise there is no way for them to join. As a Dad, I like this much better than having him out there playing on public servers. It’s not full weirdos who might be preying on kids, but it is full of 9 year olds and that presents its own problems.

Just as in days of old, the resting position of my hand on the keyboard naturally conforms to the QWER required for at-any-moment League of Legends play. It's got that kinda cats paw thing dialed in and I'm ready to hit them in my warded brush with my E, pop W on my way in, and Q anyone else fancy enough to remain. I don't give a shit, that's fine. I can dig two holes.

We’re preparing the Thornwatch playtest adventure for PAX Prime and it’s going really well. At PAX East we had people play the game, but it was really just a combat scenario. It was designed to test our card mechanics and our Momentum deck which manages initiative as well as monster damage. It was a great test and we got a lot of really useful feedback. Now with PAX prime coming up we’re ready to show off a more complete picture of what playing Thornwatch will really be like.

Playing as much Fates Forever as we did, those familiar lanes and interactions ultimately rekindled some kinda Goddamn LOL thing. It's sort of like how there are always collectible card games of one kind or another coming out, and they are good for whatever reasons that particular one is good, and then a new Magic release crops up and now you're fucked again. All paths wind up the hill, back to the Old Temple.

Pax Prime is coming up quick but there’s another PAX on the horizon as well. On October 31st we’ll all be heading down under for PAX Australia. I’m really excited for this show as we’re moving into the larger Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre. This is a beautiful venue and you can actually still get Sunday and Friday tickets if you’re interested in joining us.

I went back into that Silent Hills "experience" and I think it was mostly a good idea to do so.

There is a lot about being a man I've never understood, a lot of specific phrases that I'm supposed to understand, a lot of stances I supposedly hold, when as a generality I'm only trying to decouple the Hot Pocket from its little microwave holster thingy. The "actuator," I think it's called. But the thing about legs going up never made any sense to me, not that I especially want it explained, because interpreting it literally is actually way better.

My wife Kara took a photo of me this past weekend that I think is pretty profound. I was sitting in the dining room fiddling with my new Oculus Rift. I finally got some cool stuff running on the DK2 and I was having a blast.