Penny Arcade turned twenty one yesterday which is pretty hard to believe. It feels like just yesterday I was laying on the floor of the apartment I shared with Jerry, drawing the first comics with pencils and pens. I've been making Penny Arcade for half my life now and I still love it. I asked folks on Twitter to share their favorite strips and memories from the last 21 years. The resulting thread was a lot of fun to read and is still growing, so I figured I'd share it here:

I didn't mean to taunt Gabriel by not taking his advice on The Mandalorian, but Metal King Studios just put out an official mod for their incredible skirmish campaign wargame Relicblade in Tabletop Simulator and it's the most important thing that's ever happened.

Something people who like Star Wars sometimes discuss is the prevalence of Carbonite Freezing in the setting's various Expanded Universe excursions. It's undeniably one of the more rad things about Empire - and the Han that emerges from that device is decidedly more horrifying than the one we see in Jabba's palace. It's a skin-tight sarcophagus. There are a lot of things to be scared of here. But it's so novel, so experimental, that Han is simply a test of the device. The implication is that it's not common. But it seems to show up a lot. So.

I can't think of anything to say that would promote the set better than just… showing you. Behold:

I'm aware that there are concerns around the truncated Pokedex for Sword and Shield, and there's no more robust defender of the old ways than my son, born eight years after the game launched. He has levied gruesome criticism since the first trailer, was incensed by the worst excesses of the Let's Go era, but as the date has inched ever closer his mind has been seized against his will. I like Pokemon but not enough to beat them. I like to catch a few and give them punny names and then quit. He finishes the Dex. So maybe he's in a better position to understand precisely what these divergences represent; he's like his Uncle, in that respect.

I enjoy watching Judge Judy whenever I watch it, but I haven't watched it in maybe fifteen years outside of the clips Gabriel shows me. My life is not constructed in a way that makes frequent Judy Watching possible. I wasn't aware that it constituted essentially a fundamental aspect of citizenship or that Judge Judy's hunger for justice was only matched by her hunger for manflesh.

I picked up the new Xbox Elite Controller last week and have been using it as much as possible ever since. I really like the series one Elite that I had with only a few minor gripes. I wasn’t a fan of the paddles on the back as I found myself hitting them accidentally. This series two controller has a bunch of updates but I’ll just mention the ones that jump out to me after a few days of playing. 

Luigi's Mansion 3 is about as pure as gaming gets. It's like a pearl, formed by a process of gleaming polish, accreted around a fundamental kernel: that vacuuming is fun. And it is.

I've tried for a few days now to understand the term Sweaty (adj.), sometimes utilized in the noun form Sweat. That is to say, a Sweat is someone who Plays Sweaty and moistens game lobbies such that the lobby itself becomes a Sweaty Lobby. This is a lobby where some of the participants care so much about the outcome of the match that they endeavor to win the round by utilizing perks and weapons. There is some nuance to the position, but it's not actually solvable. People have different reasons for playing games.

There were many possible configurations for this strip, but ultimately we decided that the version which was most pure should reign.

I was talking about it on Wednesday a bit, this network horseshit I was trying to manage with Xbox Parties, and the censers and assorted warlock crap I discovered to resolve it. But I didn't stop being mad. So now there is a strip about it also, in the same way you might place a poultice against an infected gum I hope that it will draw the poison out.

I bought the new Modern Warfare long before all the Blizzard controversy. Personally I thought they made a terrible decision when they banned Blitzchung and and even worse decision when they lied about the reasons in their PR bullshit after the fact. I have been a Blizzard fan for decades but I think it’s very clear that this is not the same company it used to be. With that said, I think that there are a lot of people at Activision/Blizzard who are just trying to make cool games and they have nothing to do with these stupid business decisions.

Last year, Call of Duty was like three different games on one disc - three separate experiences with three separate progression systems. That's one way to do it. It was like having access to three distinct buffets simultaneously, yet still being bound by the volume restrictions inherent to a finite creature. I tried a bit of each, and loved Blackout - I think Blackout is probably the best BR there is. Kiko still plays every week. I had the same kind of fun with the regular multi that I usually have, which is a fair amount. It's just something I do with my friends, like, I dunno. Pickleball. It's a place I go to do a thing.

I've played through the intro of Outer Worlds, and came away impressed and just generally warmed by the experience. It's unfortunate that it sounds so much like Outer Wilds. Every time I type it, I'm like… is it the other one? At least they're both amazing; it's not like there's one you need to avoid. I advocate wholeheartedly for this newly christened Outerverse in its entirety and I think it's standing on firm legs.

Shroud is one of the streamers I actually, like… watch. I knew about Ninja because I'm a living, conscious being, I've seen him play and felt wonder, but after Apex Legends hit I watched me a ton of Shroud as he more or less defined excellence there. And now he's joining Ninja at Mixer. Which will ultimately have the same effect, I'm sure. But it is incredibly fun to talk about.

Super Spin Digital is a company based in Melbourne, Australia - a place which is some call "Melbs," which sounds vaguely plural. As though it were possible to have more than one Melb, and thus a word was required. This team was formed from talents extracted from Halfbrick responsible for effortless fun like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, and this might be why their new game Spin Rhythm XD feels like a fundamental entry in the Rhythm genre even though it literally just hit Early Access. I have games that never left Early Access; I have games that emerged from Early Access no better than they entered it. I think we've all played the Beta that we bought much later in a bloom of optimism, the bugs we reported fully secure, perhaps even canonized.