Sometimes I bounce right off of a Fire Emblem game, and sometimes they get their hooks in me. On paper I should not be into Fortune’s Weave with all its social dynamics and heavy story bits but I somehow managed to play long enough to discover a gameplay loop that has me completely obsessed.
I will say that I have put about 20 hours into the game but that is misleading because I have actually restarted it a couple of times. Just like the comic strip suggests I selected “Classic” for my first run but after an important character died right away I chickened out and restarted on the casual difficulty. I also took this opportunity to change my starting character as there are four different hero's stories to choose from after a quick prologue. Playing as Leda now I sunk a significant amount of time into the game and actually got hooked on some of the story elements. I was watching cut scenes! After a while I realised that the game is actually pretty easy and I wanted to bump the difficulty up to hard and I decided I wanted the challenge of perma-death so I turned that back on as well. If you have ever played a tactics game before in your life I highly recommend playing this game on hard otherwise you will find yourself breezing through all the fights without much challenge.
The story is strong and the presentation is excellent. Both of those kept me playing long enough to discover the game’s core loop and now I am hooked. Fortune’s Weave is built around a calendar and a weekly schedule. You will be told that an event might be coming up in a few months and you will need to be at a suggested level to succeed. How you spend the days leading up to that encounter will determine how prepared you are for the fight. There is a main hub city full of activities you can take part in to boost the stats of your team. There’s social stuff like giving gifts, sharing meals and talking to recruit new characters and increase bonds between your crew. There’s also training to increase their weapon stats in particular ways, temples you can provide services for in order to earn new powers and a very special bird.
This is all cut scene stuff but very well done. These activities can all be done once per week which leads into the loop. Outside the city is a large undiscovered map that you move around on sort of like a big game board. Each time you move a few spaces or decide to investigate an area time passes on the calendar.
So you might grab a few quests in town and then head out into the world map moving from space to space discovering new paths, locations, getting into fights as you go and always keeping an eye on what day of the week it is and how long you have until your next big event. I fell into a pattern where I would head out and see how far I could get but always getting myself back to town by Sunday morning so I could do all the activities that reset each weekend. Eventually you discover some ways to travel that make getting around quicker but managing the calendar and my travel has been a fun challenge so far.
The combat itself feels familiar to me in a good way. It’s a solid tactics experience with tons of depth. You can micromanage each character's inventory or let the game suggest optimal builds. I will say that is normally the way I got but after trying it I found myself going in and manually adjusting almost all of them. There is a lot of gameplay in getting the right weapons and abilities slotted and I’m having fun getting into the weeds with some of these builds. You can actually automate huge chunks of the game including fights themselves. If you want to skip months at a time you can and just automate what each character is doing during that time from a list of stuff like Train, Combat, Search, and stuff. Not how I would choose to play the game but it’s there for you number perverts. Personally I think the game is beautiful and I love watching the battle animations play out each time. When the enemy has a 58% chance to hit me but my nearly dead dude deflects the blow I get excited! I just want to flip coins and watch cartoons I guess.
I am including this update about the Child’s Play auction again for the Monday crowd!
Meet Xander, one of the coolest gamers at Rady Children’s Hospital. He’s been streaming Mario Party from their studio, not just to play, but to teach other kids how to master the mini‑games. Absolute boss energy.
— childsplaycharity.bsky.social (@childsplaycharity.bsky.social) September 18, 2026 at 8:29 PM
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The Child’s Play dinner auction is coming up on November 13th and will be hosted again this year by myself and my good friend Jerry Holkins who some of you might know from his work on Penny Arcade.
Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are back at the helm! Our Penny Arcade founders will once again host the Child’s Play Charity Auction, bringing their signature wit and charm. Secure your seat now: childsplaycharity.org/auction
— childsplaycharity.bsky.social (@childsplaycharity.bsky.social) September 15, 2026 at 8:12 AM
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I’ve seen a list of the auction items so far and it is shaping up to be a great year. We have tons of Lorcana offerings from Ravensburger, a huge collection of Magic the Gathering goodies from WOTC, lots of custom made crafts and original art. I will be donating a number of pieces this year including some of my newly made traditional artwork done with pens and markers like this Pikachu!
Think I will give this one to @childsplaycharity.bsky.social for the dinner auction.
— Gabe (@cwgabriel.bsky.social) August 23, 2026 at 10:07 PM
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There is still time to donate an item if you have something you think would be wonderful for the auction. We are always on the hunt for cool one of a kind items from the industry as well if you happen to work someplace that makes games.
I hope you will join Jerry and I on November 13th to raise some money for a great cause!
-Gabe out
