Lamp, broken circa 1988

requisite Boredoms-adjacent content

I will say that when I saw there was a song on here with "Ska" in the title I felt real, real dread. I am no friend of Ska. Then I put it on and just genuinely enjoyed the record all the way through. I feel that it's got what a lot of rock bands are missing, which is engaging in tropes because you enjoy them and not because it's your brand or because you're seeking some puritan ideal. They immerse themselves in rock history but none of the dogma, so they can fuck around with it in anarchic ways. Really enjoyed this. Favorite song was Manhole.

AUTO CHESS [4] This is probably the game of the year, in an objective newsworthy sense. It's the dawn of a new genre and it's exploded in popularity. I'm now going to do my best to explain how it works, and then the difference between the three variants of it currently available, and then what I actually think of it. I'm doing this because I think a lot of people are doing a totally shit job of explaining how the game works, and I would like to throw myself onto the pile and see if I can climb to the top and get the flag. ACT 1: PLAYING THE GAME Okay. So, eight players. You get a slight amount of money, and you use that money to buy units, or "pieces." You place those pieces on half a chess board. A timer ticks down, the other half of the chess board fills with enemies, and then all the pieces come to life and act in specific ways. Warriors will tank things. Archers will shoot stuff. Assassins will leap over everyone to the back of the line and attack the ranged people. Mages isolate and attempt to neutralize specific targets. etc. The pieces each have two types of synergy, and those synergies will convey different things. (Multiple warriors will increase armor for all warriors. If you have a single demon, it will do 50% more damage. If you have two witchers, they will be recognized as one demon. etc etc.) At the end of the round, the board of purchasable pieces changes, and you can add more pieces. So, you construct a board of pieces through what's available. You can also use the money you get to re-roll all the purchasable characters. "Why is this important?" If you get three of the same piece, it will upgrade into a Two-Star version of that piece, which makes it hit harder and more resilient. If you get three Two-Star pieces, they can all combine to one Three-Star piece. The Three-Star pieces are the goal of your teambuilding exercise. Now this all costs money. There's multiple ways of accruing money. If you get REAL lucky early on, you can just spend the whole game accruing money through a win streak. There is also, however, bonus money gained for being on a losing streak. So if you don't get money early, it behooves you to job so you can accrue money and see what interests you in the purchase board. Oh, and by the way, the money accrues interest, so the longer you wait, the higher your interest is, the more you have to throw around when you cash out. You can also sell pieces back for a full refund, if you start with one strategy and then realize you want to pivot to another. Throughout the match, you will level up. Every time you level up, you can add another piece to the board. I have never gotten past level 8, but I assume you can. Winning is not the only way to get experience. You can also buy it. Five coins gets you 4XP. So that's another thing to add in to the overarching strategy of the match The first three rounds are against AI enemies, and then after that it's humans, with an AI damage check at every 5th level from then on (starting at level 10). So your boards of pieces will fight other boards, while defending your own board. It'll in fact make a copy of your board and put that against someone else. So, you can be defending against Player B, but attacking Player E. The ultimate goal is to defend: If all your pieces die, you will take damage that is multiplied by the number of enemies left. Oh, also, these AI enemies drop items that you can use to permanently buff your pieces, and those items So, to recap, this game has -No Mechanical Barrier (you place the pieces and they fight for themselves) -Looting (items from creeps) -Gambling (Constant rerolling of purchasable characters) -Creativity (Creating synergies from the characters you see, which keeps you on your toes and looking for exploitable patterns) -Tactical Considerations (Placing your pieces to counter assassins and mages and put the pressure on them) -Strategic Considerations (Economic considerations that run through the match) -It's totally free-to-play and is doing the season pass thing. It's like a perfect modern video game. Oh, also, each game takes like 30-45 minutes. ACT 2: WHICH ONE'S WHICH So there's currently four versions of this game that you can play "right now." These have various weird hoops around playing them. I'm going to address them in Chronologicalesque order. Dota 2 Auto Chess. This is a mod for Dota 2. If you're familiar with the origins of Dota, this one is the most cosmically funny way to play Auto Chess. It uses Dota assets to represent all the pieces, and if you have some Dota knowhow then you'll understand what a lot of the pieces will do from knowing how they work in that game. It does, however, require that you install Dota 2, and expose yourself to the kinds of people that play Dota 2. It's not long for this world, because... Auto Chess (or Auto Chess:Origin). When the Chinese team that invented the game could not come to a deal with Valve, they made a version for phones that cleverly adjusted the models/names to look somewhat similar but not entirely. It's currently only on iOS and Android, but it will be coming to PC through the Epic Game Store. This is the one that I play. Teamfight Tactics. So the League of Legends people saw that Auto Chess was popular, and saw that it used MOBA models and assets to make a new game, and went "Hey! We have MOBA models and assets!" And now they have one too. Oh, it's also hex grids instead of squares. And, it's currently the most popular game on Twitch. You can only get it through the League of Legends clients, so take the thing I said about exposing yourself to Dota people and make it like 300 times worse. It's also only available through their test servers, and I dont know if they added a restriction to keep new players from getting on there or not. Dota Underlords. When team invented game not come deal valve, Valve make own. So basically what I'm saying here is, "some modders had a good idea, and then the MOBA teams had a big old freakout about being undermined and slapped their assets into similar games as fast as possible." This one is currently available on phones and PC, but in PC you only get access if you're paying into the Dota 2 Invitational Season Pass? Or something? It seems really rough, like it's been hurried out by a bunch of techno-haberdashers that aren't used to making games. ACT 3: WHAT I ACTUALLY THINK I think it's fun! The 4 rating isn't just for how weird it is to watch this genre materialize in thin air before the world. It is an interesting game. I am terrified for the mod creators because I think they're going to get totally fucked by how widespread League of Legends is and how cruel and petty both Riot and Valve can be with monetization is probably going to lead to this genre being a toxic dump in maybe as much time as it took for this game to take over their respective parts of the internet. So my full opinion is such: It's fun, I like it, if it sounds appealing or really confusing you should give it a shot, and please try to play the one that the actual inventors of the game made and don't let the MOBA people fuck them out of recognition.

Turns out I have a physical limit to how much zydeco I can listen to before I get antsy, and it's 24 minutes. I find it hard for me to say a cogent thing about this for a few reasons. 1) it is an extremely regional thing that I imagine has to get its claws in early. It is such a peculiar mixture of elements though that it feels like some kind of jukebox for aliens that plays two songs at the same time. The cheapness of the electronic drum sounds is just so distracting. I dunno. I can't get my head around what they're going for. 2) It's a compliation, so it's not like I can fall back on artist's intent, since it's meant to be a thing you just hit Go on because there's some ritual in your life that's zydeco-centric but not necessarily zydeco-discerning. It's raw music for the sake of raw music. This is not a bad thing. It's just that- as someone who specifically only makes music in an album context, and even more specifically sees songs as a collection of pieces that can speak to a greater idea and flesh it out in a three-dimensional way that I enjoy more than other art forms- I'm not equipped to think about it in the same way that I do with longer statements. I did finish it. I did not make a special note of any of the songs on it. Bottom line: if you like zydeco, I can confirm this is zydeco.

Awwww shit, it's time for the spin-off! So there's some Shit That Needs To Happen in this house, and while I have my own wide array of music I've been going through while cleaning, I figured I'd open myself up to suggestions. I'm probably going to be making less notes than usual about these records because I'll be cleaning, but hey, if you've ever wanted to make someone listen to your favorite shit ever (or you like the other version of this thread that I do and want me to write about something less modern (because I don't like have some legal way to make sure you're telling me your Actual Favorite Album)). The only ground rule is I'm still not listening to the maga-era kanye shit. Other than that, go nuts. By the way, my favorite album is "Public Strain" by Women. Do what you like with that information.

I get what you're saying but I feed this stuff into a spreadsheet to keep track of what I play and I dont have it set up to accept that as an option, nor the interest in doing that

So I've been trying the xbox game pass pc beta thing and got around to trying some indie games I've been waffling on and could never justify buying. It's at this point that I'm gonna give a seasonal reminder as to what my scale translates to: 1 = I Hate This 2 = I Regret Playing This 3 = I Don't Regret Playing This 4 = I Love This 4.5 = Game of the Year 5 = A Dream Come True (so Fire Pro World, Tetris 99, and maybe Virtua Fighter 6 some day) VOID BASTARDS [2] What's weird is that I would recommend this game in a heartbeat to anyone that likes roguelikes. It seems extremely clever and well made, and its setting is just fantastic. I just am not the target audience. I have too much of a perfectionism thing to enjoy roguelikes, and once it sank in that it was one of those and I was like feeling my chest tighten as I progressed through the third level, I realized "oh right, I dislike these" and uninstalled it. KINGSWAY [1] Speaking of Not for Me, Kingsway! It's an open world RPG built with the conceit of like it being a fake operating system that has this one game installed that just launches a shit ton of popups to manage health, quests, etc. It is a very particular kind of throwback. Turns out, I have absolutely no nostalgia for how PC RPGs circa Windows 3.1 used to work, and I bounced off this within minutes. I'm sure this is someone's perfect game, it sure as shit isn't mine. WEST OF LOATHING [2] This is a very specific 2. Namely, it's that I cannot justify the time investment that it would take to beat this right now, which is awful because I REALLY want to just clear all my responsibilities out of the way and shove this in my face until it's done. It's the first comedy game I've played in years that I've caught myself laughing at multiple times, and on top of that it's got a decently dense set of RPG mechanics that would make a non-violent playthrough possible. It's just arrived at exactly the wrong time in my life. Strong recommend, but this game and I are star crossed lovers.

They're going to announce the release date when Act 5 is done. Not a second before. Remember, it's a VERY small team making that game.

NOW I'm interested. EDIT: I also just looked and discovered they have a DAta east Cabinet, so we edge ever closer to a Windjammers Cocktail Machine

I have mostly contempt for the two conferences so far, so instead I'll share the two things I did not experience as "fuck me they want me dead" -I'm in on the From Software game even though I am yet to successfully beat any of them. -I do appreciate that in the year where Ubisoft is trying to pass off centrism (which I find is a VERY kind way to describe their stance) as maturity, the Wolfenstein people are like "OK Y'ALL HERE'S HOW YOU CAN KILL THE NAZIS IN VR, OH AND ALSO HERE'S OUR GAME ABOUT TWIN SISTERS KILLING NAZIS IN THE ALTERNATE FUTURE-PAST, IT'S GONNA RULE YOU CAN BASH THE FASC WITH A FRIEND WOOOOO". I don't like playing those games, but I love the people who make them and wish them continued success. Also, a special note on Bethesda: I am not the first person to make this connection, but of course the publisher who black lists people over negative coverage and stopped giving out review copies to the press and masked it as wanting to ensure players would experience the game at the same time? Of COURSE they would invite a ton of shills and then turn the crowd mics up. They're trying to breed Influencer Fealty. oh btw on the youtube stream a bunch of weird music started playing during the rage 2 stuff that was like the wii shop music and the Undertale Song, anybody else hear that

the 2K games are Microtransacted to death, so that's your potential dealbreaker. If you can deal with that, go for it.

ok so like help me understand something i bought destiny 2 and the year one dlc. that was like $90 total. the year one DLC packs were abysmal and slowed my guild to a halt. Warmind specifically was so bad that after I completed it, I spent the rest of the night laying on the floor muttering "I can't believe it's worse." I have struggled to enjoy games since. so they gave all of it away with forsaken, right? but like still expected me to buy forsaken after how badly they shit the bed with the year 1 stuff? So that's cool And now they're not only giving everything I played and suffered through away, but if you start in september with their brand new free to play client, you'll start at a gear level too high for that content to matter? But they're unwilling to include forsaken in the cost of this new stuff, or even, like, discount it? My question is, what the fuck did I do to bungie? (this is not a serious question, I just needed to vent somewhere because holy shit man I feel like I'm owed money)

I have temporarily conquered my depression and I have played some video games and like twooooo? threeee? people have found my perspective helpful, so Have Some. PIXEL PUZZLE COLLECTION [4] "ok so what is this" It's picross on your phone but made by Konami so the puzzles are all old Konami sprites and music. "oh god, Konami. so how much does it cost" It's free. "lol free to download but how much do all the games cost" No, it's free. "lolol ok but how many ads are in it" None. "does it play like crap" Nah, it's kind of perfect mechanically. You like poke the part you want to fill in, and then you can drag your finger to fill in the rest of the lines, and it'll like count how many squares you've filled as you're dragging so you can put down exactly as many as you want just by touching, dragging, and letting go. "... so konami put out a good game that plays with it's own heritage and no part of it is walled behind fifteen tons of bad business" Yes. "how" lol idfk "lol" DAUNTLESS [3] Basically, it's Western Monster Hunter that's totally free to play and has complete cross play across all systems it's on. So, it feels like the future. For a lot of people, this is going to be totally awesome and a lot of fun. Stop reading now and go enjoy yourself if you think you might be interested and are not a veteran Monster Hunter player. I'm coming to this from a lot of experience with Monster Hunter, and a long history of being extremely particular about action games. From that perspective, Dauntless isn't doing it for me. I understand why they made every choice I don't like- Free to play games do better when they're cartoony, MonHun is WAY too punishing and arcane, they're Epic so of course they're just lifting the battle pass wholesale... the real problem is that it feels empty. Like, because everything is so convenient and sped up, I don't get any time to relish and I don't get any time to just relax and hang out in the environments, aside from the hub area where everyone just spits punchy quips all day (DEAR GAME INDUSTRY: STOP DOING THIS). What it adds up to is that I have felt no sense of accomplishment from beating bosses. Like, compare and contrast- when you beat an enemy in Monster Hunter, fanfare plays, you loot the monster, you get like a full minute to dance around and be a real dumbass with your friends and maybe pick up parts you missed or items in the area. In Dauntless, when the monster dies, a stinger plays, a bunch of cloudy orbs fall to the ground, it says "(name of monster) slain!' and you get maybe five seconds of running around before it slams you into a result screen and a screen with eight pounds worth of bars to fill up. It feels empty and unsatisfying, like some kind of fucked up productivity app strapped to a game about controlling the Enormous Gila Monster population. and i miss the fucking hunting horn. what is the point of hitting dinosaurs if I can't do it with a 12 foot tall bagpipe.

Aoki was a shining light in declining NOAH, and was someone I always went out of my way to see. This bums me out, but it gives me a reason to stop pretending like AJPW doesn't exist and go catch up.

but they're pointing in different directions so they must be different trailers

Sonic Mania is fuckin great, it's the 2D one that was made by a bunch of fans.

Bumping this because 1) all of my friends that have heard it think it's amazing 2) It's the first album I've ever put out that I didn't hate the second I was done working on it. Granted, that's 1 out of 7, but, that's 1! On the board! 3) i genuinely think i have made one of the best rock albums that'll come out this year, and want to put it up on the pedestal I think it deserves. EDIT: and 4) it's my birthday today (the 27th) so buy it cuz that too.

Because Japan, Takakeisho is back today against Aoiyama. On the plus side, Aoiyama has never beaten Takakeisho. On the minus side, Fighting Aoiyama With A Leg Injury seems like an exceedingly bad time.

(because I'm a psychopath) I started screaming with joy at the top of my lungs when they showed they were putting in the NSMB multiplayer on a bunch of stages. My best friend sighed very, very deeply when I told them. To explain- he is the son of an alcoholic who was a teetotaller right up until we played through NSMB Wii together, which began his life of drug use. For the record, I did not buy him the booze, he chose to obtain it and bring it over himself. So I'm excited about endless NSMB Multiplayer. It's what I've always wanted.

Hi. My new album, Complicator, is out May 20th. It will be right here. I have a thing to say about it in advance: this record is going to be LOUD. VERY LOUD. SPEAKER-RUININGLY LOUD. The first song on the record is designed to help you adjust your speakers to whatever level you think is comfortable. The single, Theme From "Complicator," is the second quietest song on the record next to the intro. PLEASE heed the warning and adjust your speakers. The cover art:

it was panda, not kuma. i know they're identical. i hate that I'm like this too.

As a Kotoshogiku fan, WOOOOOOOOOOO

The updates are several gigabytes and sony's data centers are fucking garbage so they're slow for everyone no matter how fast their internet is. I don't know how reassuring that may or may not be. As for system firmware, I believe the game discs can occasionally have the firmware on there, so install the newest game first and go from there. As for those games you mentioned, I remember God of War got patched pretty much daily during the first week of release so I'm morbidly curious as to what that game looks like unpatched.

From my current album of the year: