The context of one's current task is capable of warping all reason. I need to REMEMBER how angry I got about a simple packaging trick like having 1 of 3 random back-of-box treatments. Fun for the consumer and packaging designer alike! ...But the person stocking the shelves...

Broken mirrors are a relatively common find. They're euclidean and perfectly safe, so long as the weather is clear and you aren't carrying any Labubus on your person... #5amFrequency

...I keep tripping over examples of YouTube script writers deploying "if I do say so myself" outside of self-congratulatory contexts. "The level design in this game I'm reviewing and didn't help make is mighty impressive, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF!" sounds extremely silly to me.

I sincerely hope that remaking Halo CE in a new engine is the exercise that team needs to get a handle on what Bungie used to be, so that they can chart a course forward that results in something that actually feels new and interesting...

"...there's nothing WRONG with the size of your average unlocking world platformer; exploring huge maps for dozens of hours has been a part of the formula for longer than we've been calling them metroidvanias! However, if you play more than 2 of these a year I think you've noticed some patterns..."

On night four, the figure inside the broken screen manifested in earnest... #5AMfrequency

Few urban artifacts last a single night undisturbed, let alone the THREE this television has survived! Highly suspicious. The concave dent might simply make it undesirable, but I could've sworn I saw another figure reflected in that warped darkness... #5AMfrequency

Be glad the tech bros are obsessed with high fidelity Modern WarPorn aesthetics and shooter play so this feels as silly as it does. The tech looks like it's ALMOST in a place where it could generate a whimsical non-sequitur AdventureTime-esque choose your own adventure here...

@ass.golf Big dumb re-read, (no idea why) and ran into the following panel with a certain amount of story foresight... (I'm nowhere close to caught up on QC) Immediately wondered if this coincided with the moment you planned that direction, or if later on you just leaned way into the callback?

Not sure it's my #1 but "The Bellhop Effect" is catchy/powerful. Framing the player experience like a hotel stay in your game, the bellhop contextualizes future interactions; the room/view can be 5 stars, but how you initially handle their luggage acts like a multiplier on everything afterward...

It's nearly impossible to communicate with far-right extremists; there's this vehement insistence against the use of pronouns, meaning it's very difficult to refer to anyone in particular regardless of context.

I can see how all the legends of house elves and capricious domestic spirits got rolling... Are we slowly filling apartments with specific items like scissors; when kitchen shears vanish, and aren't turning up even after the replacements have dulled? Are there scissors in the walls, wild and free?

When in doubt, stress the obvious I suppose... Was just exposed to this MASTERFUL bit of ad slogan copy on a package of ice cream bars: "A Life Without Anything Good Is Bad." vanleeuwenicecream.com/our-story/

Kiba is basically a kaiju that happens to be the size of your hand...

How does this keep happening? MASSIVE budgets continue to be poured into almost decade-old snapshots of what the games market looks like. Imagine how hype this would look in 2018, (almost certainly around the time it was greenlit, right?) I mean, it's like 3v3 Smite but you can fly. It is 2025!

Starting to think that most indie devs have some built up immunity to seeing letter-by-letter instantiating text "bounce" to a new line as word wrap kicks in. The "reveal letters instead of printing them" solution is widely known and tutorialized in every engine, near as I can tell...

Think about how eager animators would be for a commission to reprise stuff in a branded context; they'd probably even quote great rates to iterate on existing work! I don't buy that it's actually that much cheaper/easier, ordering artists to poorly imitate other artists from scratch.

"So how's the whole vibe coding thing going?" * A bus goes by in the background, its side dominated by an ad: 'Hate Reviewing AI Code? AI Code Reviews!' "Well, the good news is there's money to be made fixing everything they're breaking... but, most of that money comes from bad investments, so..."

At the time, I was critical of Nintendo for not putting the incredibly fun Kuribo's Shoe in more levels... This would prove to be a glimpse into later Mario design philosophies of not letting the best bits become mundane through repetition! They may have taken note of how memorable it made 5-3.

Based on a brief demo, I'm guessing #LoveEternal isn't gonna be the longest game, but it's refreshing to see surreal horror presented in a modern suburban context instead of the usual sci-fi/fantasy. VVVVVV and Celeste are expecting, and Jordan Peele bought them a Silent Hill timeshare!

Additional floors exist! -Hold down the Door Close button then press Hold Door -Keep holding Door Close and rapidly tap B for the sub-Basement levels -Release Door Close only when the elevator begins moving (the display should now be flickering) #5amFrequency

"Surprise all-hands meeting."

Each time the Twilight Cabinet manifests in the city, it chooses a new location. Even though all interactions/tests have been benign thus far, this is the first time an object was ALREADY inside, so I left the suitcase well enough alone. #5amFrequency

Surely you jest... YouTube, this suggestion is- No. I'm NOT clicking that. Not even out of morbid curiosity! "Video game coverage must be synonymous with generating, being amused by, and generally worshipping SEMEN!" When on earth are we gonna stop trying to score own goals against our own hobby?

The first app/corporation brave enough to commission Worthikids for an ad AND let them freely poke fun would go viral so damn fast... We're lucky these powers of animation are used for good!

The trouble with urban tribbles isn't that they multiply... Whatever you do, just don't get tricked into carrying one home based on its apparent cleanliness or softness. #5amFrequency

Love this adorably queer rendition of "Super Mario" in a 1984 Game Freak zine, from long before the broader internet "Rule 63 style" fetishization, labelling, and categorization of such artistic pursuits.

Reasonably certain that if it wasn't for that bold, incongruous album-cover-like choice of box art back in the day, I'd never have heard of Forsaken. Heh, I certainly didn't expect it to be a Descent-style six axis shooter! Could never wrap my head around the controls back in the day, though.

I'm not really one for #VirtualPhotography and rarely touch the various detailed photo modes that AAA games revel in, but the sheer surrealism of #BabySteps is pretty inspiring... I shall title this piece: "The Smith's Apprentice"

Amended: Aeromachina somehow didn't make it onto my wishlist in the moment despite really enjoying the Test-Flight demo! Mascot platformer revivals often lack this level of integration, where identities inform capabilities that shape level design suggests upgrades that reinforce identity in a loop.

Played the #Vampire'sBestFriend demo, and can confirm it's got the retro juice. HEADS UP if you're into: -Failing fast to learn a lot, Meat Boy style -Precision platformers like Celeste or HopShot -UFO 50's simple "2 buttons control deep movement" steez and novel mechanics (Mooncat GOTY)

The launch of Battle Suit Aces took Steam frontend services down even more thoroughly than Silksong did? Whoa! (The outage is almost certainly unrelated but it's fun to imagine what Trinket would do with Team Cherry levels of attention)

I mean, they DID warn me that there was nothing up here. There's no point in being sour that the effort itself is the primary reward, lowercase "g" gamer.

Oh yeah, big sales recommendation for Metro Gravity, if you're looking for a metroidvania that hits different. Lots of fun exploration and puzzling in a world with entirely subjective gravity. Rhythm-based combat too, with bosses entirely synched to their music Also, you're a witch with a big booty

Medli: "Komali, what are you wearing?" Komali: "I'm, uh- who's that? I'm just a mysterious Korok bowman!" Medli: "..." Komali: "Who is this Komali of which you speak?!" Medli: "Prince, everyone's worried about you. Again."

The urban night spirits were able to consume every scrap of junk left out after the move, save for a single throw pillow... Tonight I learned that cultish fraternal rhetoric can be just as toxic to the dead as the living. #5amFrequency

That's the third time I've heard a games journalist assume/imply that #BabySteps is MOSTLY the work of Bennett Foddy via some sort of inherent "Kojima Effect." I don't have any privileged info about the division of dev labor, but surely the equal billing baked into the logo counts for SOMETHING...

...I can't believe BRENTALFLOSS of all people went and got my sorry ass to this degree. I'd be mad if it wasn't abundantly clear that that he was just as much of a Protomen fanatic as I was at that age; there's just no other way for every single track/bit to be targeted with such buster-precision!

Getting acquainted with this jocular loop of carefully climbing up to disrupt something, then looking down and being like... "Now what? Am I just supposed to dive off like the poor cans I kicked?!" #BabySteps

Video games lovingly tricked us into thinking that every manhole cover could be a portal to a subterranean world of massive, cavernous tunnels we could walk upright in while idly watching rivers of sewage flow by.

Walked past a makeshift brass altar, for worshipping urban gods and placating concrete spirits. #5amFrequency

Finally getting around to the #AlabasterDawn demo,and it's so incredibly slick... It plays like something from an alternate timeline where Secret of Mana was iterated on in some sort of hyperbolic design chamber that isolated it from other genre influences for 30+ years.

In the city, sometimes discarded objects are made to perform in strange impromptu displays of transient/transitory art. Nothing remains unclaimed by morning, so walking home affords me liminal gallery admission. #5amFrequency

Lotta really strange, "good thing I don't personally care about anything EA owns or makes lol" posting going on right now... It's giving "RIP to your taste in games but I'm built different," and I am forced once again to question whether social media exists primarily for cruelty amplification.

#UnfairFlips is as very illuminating little piece of design! It won't feel very game-like to some, (very few choices, even for an incremental-style game) but I'd still recommend it for an unfiltered taste of RNG...

#Silksong Complete! Thankful that the final boss didn't take 9 Sols Eigong levels of practice to overcome. I sure take my time with these things, but a good 30 of those hours are probably idling while looking at or dealing with other stuff.

Since I REALLY enjoyed #HopShot, I'd been telling myself to return to Jump King given it was a core inspiration. Confronted with the subtitle; "There is a Smoking Hot Babe at the Top!" you know what? I think I'm good, actually, and should simply move on to #BabySteps in terms of Foddian research!

I'm guessing some of the US presidents were somewhere on the spectrum, it just didn't happen to be labelled/diagnosed as autism at the time; they just really, REALLY liked trains or whatever.

Weird guys that are famous for their gameshow hosting abilities have revealed that the consumption of String Cheese may increase your chances of becoming a Gamer. The speedrunning community might exist because String Cheese was consumed by pregnant mothers?!

Well into Act 3, it's MUCH more obvious that a pretty full experience of #HollowKnight is required to get the most out of #Silksong; not for skill or training reasons, but because you'd miss all the subtle ways Team Cherry is playing on those specific expectations, fears, and experiences.