When I first saw them I was like "ok, Netflix is spending a lot of money promoting this thing. It's clearly based off of a comic book or manga, because the character designs are wacky and look like they're from different universes. It's got a little 'part one: the gobbledegook' thing on it, indicating to fans that they're adapting the whole series and which part this covers. I have never heard of this thing, but it's clearly mega-popular, so my guess is it's a huge Chinese nerd series maybe."

And I just looked it up and learned that I'm wrong about everything. How was this allowed to be made? It looks extremely like it's taking the piss as a pastiche of bad sci-fantasy epics with too many ridiculous characters ("Darrian Bloodaxe", "Atticus Noble") and tropes that look like a kid banging all their action figures together. This cannot be a serious attempt at a story but the budget is far beyond 'bad star wars parody'. I feel like I'm going insane

supposedly Snyder conceived it as Star Wars fanfiction, tried to pitch it to Lucasfilm for decades and failed, and then removed all the Star Wars brand parts and pitched it to Netflix as its own thing

because that's the only sci-fi universe that has a dark gothic atmosphere

Wot's that? Start with a single structure, a handful of dipshits, and a pile of resources?

And I have to build both the housing and industry from scratch?

And my dipshits are OK without the more advanced goods up to the point where I can produce those?

Man, I love that almost as much as I love the city having no organic development.

I love placing every shack (house) and shanty (plastic gathering center).

I love setting all the roads.

I'm going b o n k e r s for y o n k e r s for managing dozens of named citizens with rudimentary skill systems and nothing else going for them.

Folks have been talking up that 2023 has been one of the best years for video games ever. But between massive layoffs, horrible thinly veiled commercial that is the game awards, the increasing lack of discoverability for small games, and all the other stuff around video games this year, I figured it might be nice to run an informal survey of Cohost's favorite games of 2023 (and what 2024 games are folks here most excited for.)

Link to the Survey!

I'm still trying to get through some games but probably have a set list if I'm being honest. I would like to finish up 9 Years of Shadows and go through Humanity though. Also did you all forget that the Ghost Trick remaster came out this year even though you all promised to play it this time for real?

Anyway, feel free to share the original post with your answers if you'd like! And if you're not sure, I'm still going to leave this open til February 3rd!

So when I was a kid I dreamt of being an author the same way I dreamt of being a Power Ranger. Then I grew up and realized "oh shit, people can just become writers, nobody can stop you. So I started writing.

I love writing, enough that I kept doing it and I started to get involved with other writers and with the publishing industry.

And since then, my dreams have gotten smaller and smaller every year.

But I have survived and thrived off being a copywriter.

Except that I hate it! Now more than before, when I am an SEO copywriter and everyone's excited about AI.

I can't be the ways shitty tech will improve by job of internet enshittening.

I'm not even looking for an SEO job at this point. I want real shit, mostly for or about video games.

But I too am hostage to a world where the value of my work is decided by people who can't write¹ and would have replaced me with AI yesterday.

1. Lithuania isn't an English speaking country, so you can imagine what that additional barrier does when it comes to someone more then a single management step removed judging your work.