Tipa

@chasingdings.com

227 Followers 287 Following

Right now, a mom and someone who is trying to figure out AWS.

Azuriel finds Palworld 1.0 still the same compulsive ARK-like loop, only smoother, busier, and good enough to crowd out Hearthstone and Guild Wars 2. Magi flags Volcano Princess hitting consoles and mobile July 30 with updated translations, voice acting, new content, and a free Steam update later. Krista spotlights Tiny Delivery, a cosy narrative game about a tiny robot making deliveries while borrowing, meddling, and causing a little chaos. Joar checks back into WoW with warlock progress, Zul'Aman renown, gathering professions, Loremaster work, and a comically stubborn lack of purple pants. Marc revisits The House of the Dead and how Sega made zombies, branching paths, and multi-hit enemies stand out in crowded light-gun arcades. Wilhelm tears into EVE Online’s Ansiblex jump-bridge capacitor changes, arguing the zone-based nullsec nerf turns travel into an unworkable mess. Roger reflects on retirement by missing the human side of work most: camaraderie, shared knowledge, and the informal help networks AI can’t replace. UltrViolet does a bullet-point check-in on a quick chemo day, messy InoReader feed cleanup, and barely finding time for Dungeon Crawler Carl. Jamie Zawinski blasts Scott Wiener over the Trans March fundraising uproar and related pro-Wiener PAC ties, with zero patience for the whole spectacle. Jeff used Claude to build a GPS time badge for Pimoroni Tufty 2350, then logged Open Sauce satellite data for some neat visualization experiments. Axxuy rounds up sharp reads on Pandoc link pages, distraction-free writing, PKM skepticism, RSS tradeoffs, and being more public online. Bhagpuss pivots from making a Zines Forever upload to musing on zines, archiving old work, and why the format still pulls so hard.
Stargrace is deep in Wurm Online mining grind mode, pushing from 83 toward 99 while juggling meditation and an army of brick-making priests. Tipa’s Frosthaven crew bungles Spire Basement hilariously, clogging the start with traps and obstacles before chasing a Living Doom kill for her Trapper quest. Frostilyte marvels at Mewgenics’ absurdly detailed in-game radio, a pointless-on-paper feature that quietly makes the world feel weirdly alive. Shintar digs through Data for Azeroth and realizes her supposedly casual World of Warcraft playstyle has earned some surprisingly rare achievements. Tobold argues Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous loses plenty of players to complexity, but that same brutal barrier is exactly where the fun lives. Joar writes about retirement, moving, and the big unasked questions his sons are really asking sideways about whether he’s okay and whether it was worth it. Brennan pushes back on vibe coding bravado, arguing AI-generated mountains of code are a maintenance liability, not a meaningful productivity flex. Warner reads Apple’s rumored device leasing plan as another step toward segmented computing, where financing softens sticker shock but widens who gets access. Bruce Schneier flags MIT’s rollout of 500-plus AI surveillance cameras with face, object, and behavior classification, and the takeaway is basically just: yikes. Dave Winer sketches rss.chat as a three-part RSS ecosystem for writing, reading, and whatever indie developers build in the space between. Wilhelm kicks off Blaugust 2026, keeping Belghast’s blogging tradition alive with the usual signups, Discord, and room for both daily grinders and casual posters. Blockade85 reflects on building basic self-care habits, surviving summer projects and Poison Everything, and maybe reviving a writing routine before Blaugust.
Azuriel is not having a great time with Breath of the Wild, blaming weapon durability, clunky menus, and combat rewards that make fighting feel pointless. Bhagpuss gets cheerfully hooked on Hethereau’s Midnight Catzebo scratch-card event, proving 999 Nights added at least one very effective money sink. Krista highlights Lavender Station’s demo as a calm, hand-drawn train-station sim built around cleaning, decorating, and zero-pressure cosy routines. Scopique finds a near-perfect TradeWars 2002 throwback in Warp to Sector One, with just enough modern UI to spare the paper notes. David recaps a lively Slug House session, with guild politics, a creeping swamp, and the Battle Brothers chasing a giant slug through Uzul’s manor. Wilhelm breaks down EVE Online’s proposed Ansiblex jump bridge nerfs, with smaller ships favored and capitals locked out in a very nullsec-shaping change. UltrViolet digs into traffic logs and finds RSS dominates his readership, then pivots to thoughts on aging Kindles and Dungeon Crawler Carl. Jamie Zawinski turns an SD-card errand into a small manifesto against paying wildly inflated storage prices on principle. Pete likes AI but argues it can sabotage learning to code, especially when search and editor autocomplete hand you the answer too fast. Juhis spots a perfect note-taking exchange in See How They Run and delights in the ‘write everything down first’ philosophy. Magi kicks off Blaugust 2026 with signup details, posting milestones, and a community-builder track that keeps the event about connection, not just output. Tofutush answers an OC questionnaire on influences like MLP and Homestuck, favorite tropes, and why paranoia keeps showing up in her characters.
Shintar celebrates finishing a SWTOR Jedi Knight story, then dives into how often each class story got completed across her alts. Kimimi makes a strong case for Atari 2600 Haunted House as real survival horror, with darkness, matches, and lightning doing the heavy lifting. Nicole digs into the gloriously janky Brick Game, from weird packaging to fake variety and its very obvious Tetris obsession. Wilhelm checks in on Fantasy Critic League as The Incident at Galley House waits on reviews and Denshattack! lands a strong early score. The Chronicler gives Three Days of Gettysburg: Deluxe Edition an overview, spotlighting GMT’s lavish components, optional rules, and big Civil War scope. Tobold says AI is great for cutting through SEO sludge and surfacing usable Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous build advice, hallucinations included. WCRobinson recaps a personal push in Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel’s World Championship Qualifiers, covering prep, decks, performance, and lessons learned. Andrew Plotkin flags a browser-playable return for The Fool and his Money, plus a neat little tour through puzzle-game preservation woes. Tipa turns presidential history into a speedrun leaderboard, with Teddy Roosevelt’s record and 2028 contenders like AOC, Ossoff, and Tiffany Trump. Brennan argues the IndieWeb needs a ladder, not a purity test, with easy platforms as stepping stones toward fuller ownership. Dave Winer shares a WordPress example app for rss.chat and keeps pushing inbound RSS as a way to break social web lock-in. Roger tunes up his Squarespace blog for Blaugust with a post counter and a much beefier, cleaner blogroll setup.
Stargrace’s Wurm Online Friendship Bay trip wraps with forge-side socializing, named animal prizes, and a very relatable ready-to-go-home energy. Tipa says Captain Sonar was a total hit: turn-based tutorial maps, surprise torpedoes, and a kid-friendly party game nobody checks their phone during. Wes rounds up early PlayStation 5 emulation buzz, plus more N64 recompilation, fan-translation, and MiSTer save-sync chatter. Ashley Schofield argues Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike’s parry system is the real masterpiece, even if the roster and balance are gloriously messy. Scarybooster turns Soulframe into pure battle-poetry, riffing on Wrath, Death, Doom, parries, mounts, and going full wildfire across Midrath. Ellie finds Viewfinder’s climate-collapse story gives its puzzle-box simulation real weight, making this bleak little puzzler stick harder than usual. Wilhelm crunches his 2026 gaming spreadsheet: EVE Online leads, but Stardew Valley, Forza Horizon 6, and Windrose are the ones still gaining ground. Bhagpuss freewheels through a grab bag on memory, vaudeville, and music hall with the kind of digressive charm that makes the whole thing work. Warner marks turning 70 with a short Sunday reading list on kids, meaning, politics, and Google’s culture, all filtered through birthday perspective. Bruce Schneier’s weekly squid check-in points to Cape Cod’s beached squid and opens the floor for whatever security news he missed. Jamie Zawinski responds to a new WordPress exploit with the nuclear option: disable REST, XML-RPC, oEmbed, JSONP, and even WordPress AI support. Dave Winer shares rss.chat’s new firehose and JSON RSS experiments, then gives devs a pep talk about AI collaboration and protecting interop.
An image featuring the title "Captain Sonar" in bold lettering, set against an underwater backdrop with submarines and torpedoes. The tagline includes the words "Synchronise - Organise - Navigate - Attack - Repair."
John loves Kaz’s frantic tile-based arcade scoring, where upgrades, curses, and cursor-combo spells turn simple movement into dense tactics. UltrViolet finds Rise of the Ronin mostly average, with the real boss fight being PS5 button memory and that triangle parry. Sey rounds up Secret Sauce Showcase standouts, from fakeOS horror in SPRKLS.exe to Dreadmoor and Mirage Miracle Quest. Bhagpuss revisits Palworld for 1.0 and remembers a survival hit that started fun, then drifted into sameness, fiddliness, and chores. Wilhelm revisits Steam Early Access, weighing playable launches like Valheim, Enshrouded, and Palworld against the usual pay-now, maybe-later gamble. The Chronicler says March of the Ants: Evolved Edition packs a proper 4X strategy game into 90 minutes, with ants instead of armies. Jimmy digs into Maxis chasing business simulations after SimCity 2000, including the gloriously uncommercial SimHealth bureaucracy sim. Anarchae checks back in after family travel with sci-fi reads, Project Hail Mary and old movies, plus Zelda TotK and Fate/GO progress. Warner is gearing up for a smoke-cleared, grandkid-filled weekend and sounds happily braced for a big day. Roger finally snaps at Windows 11, arguing its bloat, bugs, and flaky MTP tablet transfers make a new OS feel overdue. Jamie Zawinski blasts YouTube’s DMCA counter-claim gauntlet after a fair-use Bonnie Tyler parody restoration got rejected and ID verification failed. Dave Winer says rss.chat now supports feed discovery and argues the social web should embrace full-text posts instead of ActivityPub-style complexity.
Stargrace heads back to Wurm Online’s Friendship Bay Summer Impalong, a five-day community event full of item improvement, contests, and player generosity. Kimimi expected Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary’s twenty rulesets to be a mess, then found a playful puzzle party full of delightful weirdness. Zack returns from burnout with a broad gaming-industry check-in, led by worries over Sony ending physical game production in 2028. Wilhelm maps out EVE Online’s Alliance Tournament XXII buildup, a months-long bureaucratic odyssey before the finals finally land around Halloween. Thomas is hooked by The Alters, praising its existential sci-fi setup and unusually strong choice-and-consequence writing. Scarybooster remembers Belghast and other gaming bloggers as friends, collaborators, and the people who made the old blogosphere feel like home. Jeff checks out QuadRF, a Raspberry Pi 5 and FPGA phased-array radio that can track drones and visualize WiFi through walls. Bruce Schneier highlights Daniel Solove’s case that AI privacy needs company accountability, not just putting personal-data control on users. Dave Winer keeps iterating on rss.chat with feed icons, server setup tweaks, and even a little Gemini help for images and descriptions. Aywren announces Blaugust 2026, honoring Belghast’s memory while inviting creators to join a community-first month of blogging. Brennan gets candid about the daily costs, mixed genres, and decidedly unromantic realities of sustaining a serious writing life. Jeromai shares an AI-written pep talk about work and worth, then notes Blaugust 2026 is coming and signups are live.
Patrick sounds mostly crushed by 4th Edition Underdark, but still delights in Torog and the grotesque secret-hoarders of the Incunabulum. Magi is all-in on Denshattack!, a pop-punk train trick game that channels Tony Hawk, Jet Set Radio, and pure arcade chaos. Marc makes the case for Hotel Dusk: Room 215 as a stylish DS graphic adventure worth reviving, linearity complaints be damned. Sweetie eagerly traces Dragon Quest XII trailer clues that might point back to Dragon Quest IX’s world, and maybe a long-overdue remake. Wilhelm spun up a solo Stardew Valley save, rediscovered Steam Cloud, and found Switch 2 controller habits followed him to PC. The Chronicler spotlights Chandragupta as GMT’s Great Battles heads to ancient India, with elephants, chariots, and varied scenarios keeping things lively. Jamie Zawinski unearthed a 36-year-old VHS of D.O.A.’s 1990 DNA Lounge concert, complete with a YouTube upload for punk-history digging. Warner reports survival after an all-day, 18-window installation marathon, with plenty of praise for Daniel’s crew and their sweaty professionalism. Tim Bray wrestles with loving World Cup spectacle while hating FIFA corruption, NFT ticket nonsense, and prices that lock most fans out. Dave Winer says rss.chat is still an early writing-first bootstrap, adds docs links, and notes his WordPress news site is picking up steam. Roger pitches Blaugust 2026 as a low-pressure August community for bloggers, podcasters, and creators who want prompts, support, and momentum. Bhagpuss rallies folks for Blaugust signups, celebrating the blogging festival while honoring Belghast’s memory and the community carrying it forward.
Heartless calls Crimson Desert a fascinating mess: gorgeous world, MMO-like vibe, awful controls, nonsense story, and somehow still weirdly compelling. Krista looks back on her path from Genshin Impact to Infinity Nikki while giving a clear, friendly overview of how gacha games work. Luna highlights cozy indies finally hitting 1.0, with Go-Go Town!, Fields of Mistria, and Doloc Town all nearing full release. Mailvaltar is baffled that Neverness to Everness keeps drifting away from its great city sandbox into updates that barely connect to the core game. Shintar finds WoW’s War Within recap is really an abridged expansion storyline, but a pretty solid alt-leveling change of pace. Scarybooster jokes that crocheting is basically Warframe inventory management in yarn form, complete with currencies, materials, and grind-brain spreadsheets. Wilhelm drops into Pokémon Go’s 10th anniversary weekend and gets a nice reminder that the game still pulls real crowds, even if event messaging is a mess. Tobold’s enjoying Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous at a tweaked core difficulty, with more satisfying freedom and flow than his recent RPG comparisons. Joar reflects on retirement by letting go of career-maxing, status calculations, and the habit of optimizing every corner of life. Bruce Schneier spots a new screen pixel that can also sense light, and immediately hears the creepy hum of Orwell’s telescreen getting closer. Scopique uses DaVinci Resolve Studio 21’s Magic Mask to cut Star Citizen emotes into reusable reaction clips without drowning videos in junk edits. Dave Winer is demoing rss.chat as an RSS-based social writing surface, with ThreadWalker showing how reply trees can be crawled straight from feeds.
Tipa’s EverQuest Legends rogue is rekindling classic EverQuest memories, from Burning Rapier and raid scouting to why rogue became her real main. Frostilyte is impressed by The Incident at Galley House, a Type Help reimagining built around timeline sleuthing, audio scenes, and an 11-death mystery. Shintar uses ManicTime to chart years of SWTOR play and wonders if doing less after Galactic Seasons might actually make the game more fun. Bhagpuss wraps Warrens Continent on Story Difficulty, nearly clears its event track, and digresses charmingly about holidays, retirement, and definitely human blogging. Joar logged just five WoW hours in June, squeezed between major family moves, with a warlock barely progressing but at least not sliding backward. Wilhelm tags along in Windrose as Potshot unveils a remarkably detailed, player-built Booty Bay, showing off the game’s serious base-building chops. Thomas is cautiously hopeful for Urban Strife 1.0, with revised perks, a final siege, more maps, and dialogue polished by Scott Hamm. Jamie Zawinski marks 25 years of running DNA Lounge, marvels at the milestone, and bluntly asks patrons to donate and actually show up. Emily retreats further from social media, connecting internet age-gate laws, algorithm fatigue, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard discourse to a long-brewing burnout. UltrViolet spent the weekend wrangling a dead sofa with dollies and leverage, then used AssemblyAI transcripts to build toward a searchable personal LLM. Warner notes Apple’s OS 27 public betas are here, with SiriAI seemingly improving but still very much a beta inside a beta. Dave Winer says rss.chat got a second test server, better docs, and RSS feed features like inReplyTo and comments as it gears up to grow.
Screenshot showing a gnome mage in an Oracle Robe and wielding a Burning Rapier and a Stiletto of the Bloodclaw (with their item pages open) standing in the bank area in North Freeport. Additional UX elements and chat windows exist.
Roger revisits Space Cadet 3D Pinball on Windows 11 and gets walloped by pure Windows 95 nostalgia in the process. Magi says Demon Lord: Just a Block makes traditional roguelike combat feel surprisingly reactive, with parries, fast movement, and Crypt of the Necrodancer-style enemy patterns. Bhagpuss is kind of amazed that Neverness To Everness 1.2 hides a whole ARPG inside it, complete with dungeons, sidequests, and overworld events. Kimimi highlights how Xuan Yuan Sword 5 lets its party grow through honest conversations and quiet support instead of big melodramatic RPG power-up scenes. Ellie pegs Vampire Survivors as an action game for spreadsheet brains, all compulsive number-go-up progression wrapped in hectic roguelite survival. Wilhelm rounds up Fantasy Critic week 28, where Doom DLC stalled, Deltarune Chapter 5 buzzed, and EA Sports College Football 27 posted an early 78.3. Andrew Plotkin digs into Infocom-era ZIL formatting, arguing that decorative indentation still did a ton of work making dense Lisp-like game code readable. Brennan lays out why deleting Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, Discord, and friends is a drawn-out fight against dark patterns, not a one-click exit. Bruce Schneier argues that fights over AI data centers matter, but they can also distract from the bigger issue of AI companies concentrating wealth and power. Dave Winer frames rss.chat as a slow-build social network for his “karass,” aiming less at product launch hype and more at bootstrapping a web ecosystem. Juhis reflects on seven months of making zines, connecting zine culture, indie web ideals, and the simple encouragement to just make one.
Stargrace joins a Wurm Online green dragon slaying, scores a welcome scale piece, then heads back to the long grind of bricks, mining, and skills. Wilhelm looks back at Pokémon Go’s wild 2016 breakout, from battery-draining family play to PokéStop-fueled business promos and a decade of staying power. The Chronicler says Danger Forward makes Battalion Combat Series more approachable, offering a lighter on-ramp to grand tactical WWII wargaming at Gela. Tobold returns to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous for its agency, arguing you can dodge Pathfinder theorycrafting by just tuning the difficulty. Brennan questions Conor McGregor’s comeback narrative, stressing the upheld civil verdict, failed appeals, long UFC absence, and reporting around PED use. Roger revisits Hammer’s The Abominable Snowman as less pure horror than a smart mix of psychological thriller, science fiction, and Yeti-chasing ambition. Bhagpuss beats the heat with a quick listening post, bouncing from Micky Dolenz covering Paul Westerberg to a horsegiirl remix of Wet Leg. Jamie Zawinski wants the plain-English AWS fix for blocking all Hong Kong traffic on a single server as scraper and bot attacks keep piling up. Dave Winer says rss.chat isn’t a ready-for-everyone product yet; it’s a slow-build social web ecosystem, with a waitlist coming as more instances open. Warner serves a reading roundup on attention spans, book hoarding, etymology, AI skepticism, politics, and why reading outside your bubble still matters.
Stargrace enjoys a peaceful solo wormhole life in EVE Online, huffing, mining, exploring, and planning an eventual evac before the Astrahus dies. John wrestles with Omen Exitio Hunger’s grim real-world inspiration while praising its Lovecraftian choice-driven horror, striking art, sound design, and early decisions. Shintar digs into how World of Warcraft: Midnight made fishing weirder, with mixed pools and rarity that doesn’t neatly match value. Scarybooster has Baro Ki’Teer melting down over TennoCon inventory, Warframe cosmetics, and the chaos of hyperactive Tenno customers. Wilhelm checks back on Stars Reach and likes that the sandbox is finally adding more structure, guidance, and an actual game-shaped intro. Anarchae rounds up a rough week of laptop reinstalls, backup gripes, sports, hard sci-fi reading, Zelda, and pre-family-visit stress. Roger reflects on wanting one stable online home, and wonders if the Blaugust Discord could become that anchor once ownership gets sorted. Juhis shares a handy MacOS tip: Quick Look plugins can make Finder preview Markdown, MKV, WEBM, and more without opening apps. Bruce Schneier’s squid post doubles as a security note on Squidbleed, a 29-year-old Squid proxy bug that can leak HTTP requests. Scopique gets nostalgic about Psion and Palm Pilot days while mulling the PocketMage as a charming, maybe-useful pushback against smartphone monoculture. Dave Winer rolls out rss.chat, a read-only social experiment built on RSS, OPML, Markdown, SQL, WebSocket, and rssCloud, with textcasting in the mix. Jimmy points readers to The Analog Antiquarian this week for Opus 4: Henry VI, Part 3.
Sey rounds up wishlist picks like KAZ, Mysarium, and D-topia, plus soundtrack shout-outs for Virtue and a Sledgehammer and Phonopolis. Azuriel revisits digital game resale after Sony’s disc exit, asking why software licenses still can’t be resold like physical games. Bhagpuss argues Sony’s move away from PlayStation discs sharpens the real issue: ownership, while downplaying archival panic around physical media’s decline. Kimimi says Yain Sidae nails the pixel-art beat ’em up look, but the shallow fighting leaves this Korean TV tie-in pretty basic. Wilhelm sizes up the Steam Summer Sale 2026, arguing Steam looks refreshingly steady next to Xbox layoffs, Sony’s digital mess, and Epic’s Fortnite-first thinking. Tobold finds Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth more cutscene-heavy soap opera than RPG so far, despite enjoying its breezy turn-based combat touches. Magi writes through grief after Belghast’s death, reflecting on Blaugust, Aggrochat, and the quiet weight of losing a familiar online presence. Jamie Zawinski links a McSweeney’s gag comparing Senator Jones to Indiana Jones’ face-melting Nazi, with the usual grim political eye-roll underneath. Warner connects Meta’s Instagram AI grab, smart-glasses recording hacks, and ‘super sensing’ tests into one big, ugly privacy warning. Dave Winer makes the old-school web case for RSS, OPML, Markdown, SQL, and WebSockets as a replaceable, interoperable social network stack. Axxuy reflects on how slow editing can erode confidence, making one-session drafting feel clearer, looser, and ultimately easier to publish. UltrViolet draws a line between AI writing and AI assistance, arguing Blaugust-friendly tools can handle titles, tags, and summaries without replacing the author.
Stargrace writes about bouncing between Wurm, WoW, EVE, GW2, and EQL, chasing the community spark that makes MMOs feel alive. Luna checks in on 150 hours of Pokopia, praising its DQB2-style building, emotional ending, and the joy of finally sharing a Cloud Island. Marc looks back at Capcom’s 1942 and its absurdly long arcade run, tracing how the shooter helped cement the company’s early reputation. Sweetie is done with tired otome staples like love rivals, secretly evil cute characters, and heroines sidelined when the action starts. Wilhelm finally cashes out No Man’s Sky’s six-week Swarm expedition, relieved the Countermeasures gate is over and wondering if Hello Games learned anything. The Chronicler rounds up teach-and-strategy materials for Seljuk, highlighting its asymmetric Levy & Campaign play and Manzikert showdown. Thomas recommends a deep Trespasser retrospective that digs into Jurassic Park’s famously flawed oddity, from gameplay and plot to fascinating development history. Roger says a Farage-versus-Count Binface Clacton race could expose populist theatrics while maybe making British democracy feel engaging again. Tim Bray argues Mastodon beats enshittified social platforms because ActivityPub keeps it portable, ad-free, and impossible for any billionaire to own. Dave Winer plugs his WordPress news feed hub and makes the usual open-web case: interop, OPML, and FeedLand still matter. Pete shares four smart YouTube picks, from physics and chip fabs to AI news and Sandeep Swadia’s hard-to-pin-down thought-process videos. Brennan reflects on organizing his blog with collections, tags, favicons, and OpenGraph tricks, then asks readers what they actually want more of.
Tipa takes EverQuest Legends’ preview as a chance to ditch her usual Dark Elf Shadow Knight plan and experiment with a gnome mage multiclass build. Bhagpuss realizes GeForce Now is a handy way to keep playing Neverness To Everness, no beefy local PC or account restart required. Krista finds Mothkeep a short, wholesome mix of hidden-object play and creature collecting, with gentle summer vibes and real-world Central European moths. Scarybooster gleefully unpacks Warframe’s wildly convoluted lore and the hype around TennoCon 2026 and a possible trip to Tau. Scopique argues games like Diablo IV can feel oddly hostile, pushing players toward FOMO, control, and optimization instead of just playing comfortably. Wilhelm says Xbox’s 3,200 layoffs were easy to see coming, and pins the blame higher up than Asha Sharma. Joar reflects on how retirement didn’t just remove work stress, it also erased the calendar rhythms that quietly gave life its shape. Tofutush answers a personal questionnaire with paracosms, Henry Stickmin, John le Carré, fusion power, cats, and some very practical anti-static advice. Mike scores a bargain Fujitsu CRT, then discovers this odd 400-line monitor is pickier than expected about what retro hardware can drive it. Bruce Schneier says AI is widening cybersecurity’s gap between skill and ability, making autonomous hacking easier and AI-powered defense more urgent. Dave Winer argues Claude can handle sandboxed QA and debugging, while “AI-izing” apps could turn things like SQL databases into user-facing tools. Juhis celebrates Junited as proof blogging’s alive and well, and makes the case for human-curated links over algorithmic recommendations.
A gnome dressed as a rogue attacks an undead creature named Gynok Moltor on the bottom floor of Befallen in EverQuest Legends as their useless pet stands by, silently watching.
Nimgimli spent the holiday indoors juggling Neverness to Everness, Wuthering Waves, and Octopath Traveler, and honestly seems pretty happy about it. Shintar says SWTOR feels welcoming again, with returners logging back in, Legacy of the Sith wrapped, and another expansion on the horizon. Mailvaltar got pulled toward Wuthering Waves by its Cyberpunk: Edgerunners collab, with Lucy, Rebecca, and Night City doing the heavy lifting. David recaps a Battle Brothers session of bargaining, gear shopping, and manor exploration before the Slug House fight really kicks off. Wilhelm checks in on No Man’s Sky’s long-running Swarm expedition, where an eight-hour mission timer has made Countermeasures feel like a slog. Tobold says Pillars of Eternity outlasted his fun threshold, which neatly explains why Deadfire can wait. Michael spotlights a hunt for possibly pre-Caper in the Castro queer games, including Vapor Palace and an unnamed Tom of Finland title. Jamie Zawinski is turning Cyberdelia into a rowdy cult-movie run with Hackers, Conan the Barbarian, Evil Dead, The Crow, and Batman Returns. Warner laments Maestral’s shutdown, since the lean open source Dropbox client beat using Dropbox’s own heavier software. Dave Winer argues WebSub should meet RSS halfway, saying web interop matters more than forcing Atom baggage onto feeds. Pixel One remembers Belghast as a constant, generous voice whose blogging and Blaugust helped make game writing feel communal. Tipa serves up a tense microgravity murder mystery where a desperate lunar slingshot surgery is somehow the crew’s best shot.
Roger remembers Belghast as a Blaugust fixture, praising his Path of Exile writing and the steady community presence now painfully missing. UltrViolet offers a brief, heartfelt tribute to Belghast, calling him a constant force for good in MMORPG blogging. Bhagpuss finds EverQuest II’s latest producer letter thin, then zeroes in on Personas and why FFXIV-style all-jobs-on-one-character kills the joy of alts. Kimimi likes Secret of the Silver Blades carrying over your AD&D heroes, but gripes when its own continuity forgets who those famous adventurers are. Wilhelm reflects on Belghast’s death and the strange, fleeting bonds of decades spent blogging, gaming, and meeting people across forums, MMOs, and the wider internet. Luna pushes back on ‘git gud,’ embracing easy modes, imperfect art, and weekly writing without needing mastery of Metroidvanias, Procreate, or 3D platformers. Brennan walks through wiring an Eleventy blog into AT Protocol publishing with Standard.site and Sequoia, plus a clear primer on the ATmosphere. Nicole digs into why NES composite video wobbles, using Mighty Bomb Jack and Apple II captures to separate signal timing quirks from plain old interference. Bruce Schneier notes France is fast-tracking post-quantum crypto by ending certification for products without quantum-safe encryption. Dave Winer is all-in on Claude Code, arguing AI is permanently changing software development and maybe writing online too. Emily honors Belghast’s role building Blaugust and a blogging community that welcomed people well beyond just MMORPG fandom. Blockade85 mourns Belghast’s death, remembering his Path of Exile posts, Blaugust leadership, and the huge community he built around blogging and games.
Cliffski shares fresh Ridiculous Space Battles footage and makes the case that fixed formation lanes beat chaotic scrums for cleaner, more cinematic fleet battles. Shintar’s enjoying WoW lately, but Blizzard’s fake cash-shop blue dot notification is the kind of attention-grabbing UI nonsense she can’t stand. David’s Slug House session sees secret doors, cursed ringbells, electric runes, and a goblin knight crashing through a ladder in the mansion’s curiosity room. Andrew Plotkin finds The Red Pearls of Borneo’s deduction and search ideas intriguing, even if too much of the actual play feels like mechanical grid-clicking. Warner rounds up pieces on language, the Constitution, patriotism, and founding myths for a very Fourth-of-July-coded Sunday reading list. Wilhelm looks back at America’s 1976 bicentennial as an inescapable wave of TV, stamps, logos, schools, and patriotic theme-park energy. Thomas runs down his favorite zombie movies, favoring dread, survival, and realism over comedy, with Day of the Dead leading the horde. Wes digs into PS1 recompilation via RecompOne, spotlighting a human-coded approach and pointedly skipping the Claude-heavy alternative. Dave Winer ties July 4 memories to a warning that Twitter-like systems shrank the web, taking RSS and HTML’s richer features with them. Tobold argues AI vendors like OpenAI and Anthropic could become the ultimate labor monopoly, making token-dependent companies more vulnerable than old-school employers. Aywren honors Belghast’s long MMO blogging legacy, Blaugust community-building, and openness through grief and cancer as others carry his spaces forward. Joar remembers Belghast as a generous MMO blogging mainstay whose encouragement, Blaugust work, and game writing kept mattering through chemo and grief.
Azuriel digs into rumored Xbox studio cuts and argues Microsoft's mess isn't just layoffs, but years of mismanagement and rotten studio culture. Wilhelm rounds up co-op survival news: Enshrouded gets an October 15 1.0 date, while Valheim answers lingering questions about its September launch. Jimmy kicks off a Maxis history by arguing game preservation can skew what mattered, especially when mass-market hits outshone enthusiast favorites. Stargrace writes through shock and heat, sharing a personal memory of Mark and the mutual vulnerability behind seeming like you have it together. Anarchae mixes a rough personal update with links, plus a heartfelt note on Belghast's passing and what Blaugust now means to them. Tipa remembers Belghast with real grief and admiration, honoring the strength and compassion he showed through loss, cancer, and blogging. Kevin says goodbye to Belghast as a kind, welcoming MMO community fixture, recalling Guild Wars 2, shared circles, and his empathy in hard times. Jamie Zawinski drops a very dumb pig joke, and yeah, the punchline is exactly the kind of groaner you'd expect. Emily's June music roundup hits Luke Combs, Avril Lavigne, Sabrina Carpenter, and Michael Jackson, with side notes on concerts, videos, and nostalgia. Tom shares a packed life update: chemo, a stress-relieving xeriscape redo, an AI-built game prototype, his kid turning 17, and lots of D&D. Bruce Schneier flags how Flock cameras can track cars by decals and racks, then notes cell-phone location data enables the same kind of surveillance. Dave Winer has fun with ChatGPT rendering talking-head versions of Claude and itself, with one typo turning into a surprisingly revealing text description.
CrazyKinux and Rixx use a laid-back EVE Online catch-up to get at the sandbox rules, risk, PvP learning curve, and friendship glue. Nimgimli resists the Octopath Traveler walkthrough rabbit hole, opting for notes, party planning, and the slower satisfaction of figuring it out solo. Sey lines up Gaming Club’s next trio—Ghost Trick, Big Walk, and Firewatch—with Steam Summer Sale enthusiasm and a nudge to try new things. Kimimi finds Dekitate High School an awkward mashup undone by shallow school sim design and some wildly misguided teacher-student interactions. Ellie revisits The Last of Us: Left Behind as a short but potent companion piece that fills in Ellie’s painful past. Wilhelm wonders why EVE Online still won’t sell neural remaps, even though attributes still gate skill training and feel like old baggage. The Chronicler spotlights An Impossible War, a block wargame on the First Carlist War built around fog-of-war, asymmetry, and tricky logistics. UltrViolet recaps a smooth MacBook Pro upgrade, blogging-in-the-AI-age thoughts, and why FFXIV-style social anxiety keeps MMORPGs at arm’s length. Bhagpuss returns to the cinema for Supergirl, loves the movie, and muses on how much the big-screen experience depends on the audience. Brennan digs into OTWArchive code to make AO3-style work imports actually function, removing host blocks and fixing the parser mess. Scopique’s Owncast plans hit browser and hosting-cost walls, prompting a familiar bout of streaming soul-searching and a fallback to YouTube tests. Dave Winer jumps from Knicks and politics to Claude and ChatGPT, riffing on AI talking heads with his usual stream-of-consciousness energy.
Syp’s monthly MMO check-in covers renewed LOTRO love, an ESO class swap, Guild Wars 2 detours, and life without a World of Warcraft sub. Tipa’s Frosthaven crew tackles Ancient Spire, juggling retirement milestones, spawning machines, bolt throwers, and a delightfully dirty trick to avoid the balcony boss. Frostilyte’s June was all about co-op games, Next Fest demos, and BOKURA’s clever asymmetric puzzle-solving with Mir. Magi spotlights standout AI-free Steam Next Fest demos, celebrating handcrafted indie games that earned instant wishlists after the festival ended. Krista checks out Atelier Yumia on Switch 2, highlighting the open-world adventure plus sharper performance, faster loads, and local GameShare. Marc hosts Wallace Truesdale on I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, weighing how the 1995 adventure game adapts Harlan Ellison’s brutal short story. Sweetie defends Deltarune Chapter 5 as character work over lore dumps, and digs into how fan theories can warp expectations. Belghast breaks down why Path of Exile 2 mapping feels worse than POE1, from collision-heavy clutter to oversized maps and less player choice. Wilhelm chronicles co-op Stardew Valley through the Fair and Spirit’s Eve, with grange-table disappointment, token grinding, and a steady march into winter. WCRobinson shares a screenshot-heavy celebration of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, spotlighting its cinematic story, striking cutscenes, and gorgeous Switch 2 Hyrule. Dave Winer riffs on politics, coding with Claude Code, and why AI-assisted software work now leaves a remarkably complete trail of decisions. Sid argues AI works best as a pair programmer: specify the taste, constraints, and tech choices yourself unless you want generic slop later.
Photo from the start of Frosthaven Scenario #15: The Ancient Spire. PCs present are Trapper, Crashing Tide, Drifter and Blink Blade. Enemies visible are Robotic Bolt Throwers.
Shintar looks at how SWTOR still attracts newcomers, and how gently ushering one into operations is trickier than it sounds. Pixel One reflects on playing MMOs solo after two World of Warcraft RP guild collapses and the eternal endgame boss: scheduling. David’s Slug House session sends the Battle Brothers sneaking into a wizard’s mansion, where weeds and bad decisions immediately complicate things. Wilhelm mixes a June roundup with WordPress/Bing indexing worries and Google AI traffic angst, plus the usual MMO and EVE Online look-back. Tobold argues Pillars of Eternity and Baldur’s Gate 3 make companion swapping feel less strategic than oddly like ditching friends. Thomas finds The Expanse: A Telltale Series strong on belter lore and Camina Drummer, even if the prequel’s pacing and villain setup wobble. Andrew Plotkin releases Visible Starcross, complete with source, a recreated mass detector chart, and more lovingly overengineered Infocom archaeology. Joar writes candidly about moving from Ohio to Arizona and how starting over in your 50s means building a life without old scaffolding. Tofutush’s June was a blur, with friends, impatience for July to end, and finally finishing House of Leaves in baffled solidarity. Dave Winer marvels at Claude’s code-reading chops, pitches an AI-first WordPress UI, and tosses in a sharp jab at the EFF. Roger wonders if blogging still makes sense when AI summaries mine posts like his Star Trek Online writing and keep the audience for themselves. Juhis says the heat has turned looming writing deadlines into melted thoughts and pure goo of consciousness.
Stargrace impulsively buys an Astrahus in EVE Online and starts the wormhole shuffle to seed alts and basic industry before it explodes. Azuriel wrestles with Switch 2 FOMO, looming price hikes, and whether Nintendo temptation beats the giant kid-friendly backlog on PC. Luna rounds up a showcase-heavy June, Steam Next Fest demos, and comfort-game time with Dorfromantik, Pokopia, and PancitoMerge. Scopique finds Crusader Kings III's Roads to Power wanderer mode more approachable, then gets blindsided by gloriously weird succession drama. Wilhelm realizes Windrose isn't loot-your-way-through; upgrading armor, weapons, and ship gear turns constant deaths into manageable fights. Michael gives Warp Point a big thumbs-up for its slick games-blog webring, random-site widget, and old-school 88x31 button energy. Bhagpuss weighs uneven endings for The Legend of Vox Machina and Good Omens, with side complaints about Prime's awkward ad breaks. Jamie Zawinski spotlights ICE allegedly pressuring a poll worker over Instagram posts, framing it as another bid to silence critics. Warner argues Americans' resilience has become dangerous complacency, especially as Democrats debate whether restoring the old balance is enough. Emily turns a dream of giant clock gears into a fond riff on Big Ben, analog clocks, and The Great Mouse Detective. Bruce Schneier flags research on weak RSA keys packed with zeros, then wonders if similar failures could even hint at deliberate backdoors. Dave Winer says Claude Code supercharges his push for interoperable RSS, Two-Way Web, and textcasting instead of silo lock-in.
Tipa celebrates finishing Pokopia’s Pokedex while roasting the Jirachi wish event and the fussy furniture demands of her Pokémon. Kimimi celebrates Star Fox 64’s cinematic spectacle, polished rumble, chatty radio banter, and smart vehicle variety that still feels fresh. Shintar dips into WoW’s Midsummer festival, enjoys the new lore-filled questline, and notices some welcome quality-of-life tweaks. Wilhelm hits Fantasy Critic’s halfway mark with Deltarune Chapter 5 limbo, Star Fox scoring 81.7, and a leaderboard shuffle. The Chronicler talks with Wolfgang Klein about Assault: Red Horizon ’41, tactical WWII design, and keeping historical wargames fast and intuitive. JJM plugs a Spanish Cepeceros episode about The Heart of Salamanderland and seems rightly chuffed to chat Amstrad CPC dev with Chema. Michael rounds up Itch.io Summer Sale picks, spotlighting horror adventures, platformers, queer arcade games, and experimental indie collections. Jamie Zawinski drops another mixtape, which is basically your cue to hit play and see what weirdly good video picks he’s assembled. Emily gleefully nominates Daenerys Targaryen to challenge Darth Vader, mostly because dragons in space would absolutely rule. Dave Winer makes the case for email newsletters and RSS-powered social web interop, with a handy tip for corralling app globals. Brennan argues vagueblogging and subtweeting are toxic online habits, tying them to strategic ambiguity, paranoia, and worse mental health.
Collage of various Pokemon in Pokopia loudly having crises in your presence.
Stargrace checks in on a slow-burn Wurm Online priest deed build, juggling slate bricks, utility, and some colorful PMK banner decorating. Aywren breaks down five common FFXIV social-anxiety triggers and rates their personal danger-bongo level with empathy and practical context. Nimgimli gets delightfully blindsided by Neverness to Everness v1.2, from Shinku’s surprise boss cameo to an in-game tabletop system and fish tanks. Wes introduces Warp Point, a Web 1.0-style gaming blog directory and webring built around RSS, discovery, and indie games writing. Scopique spotlights Mithos, a modular TTRPG GM tool that skips full VTT ambitions in favor of a customizable digital GM screen. Wilhelm rounds up gaming business chatter, arguing GTA VI at $80 and rising Xbox hardware prices won’t magically fix the industry. Brennan turns an IndieWeb Carnival prompt into a big-picture revelation about farming that upended how he thinks about humanity. Jamie Zawinski shares a newly surfaced 1990 DNA Lounge drag-and-burlesque video and hopes more ancient VHS treasures keep emerging. Warner’s Sunday link roundup threads together the open web, Google and AI, social-media control, and remembrances of Om Malik. Thomas argues The Lost World misframes its villains, making John Hammond—not Peter Ludlow—the movie’s real bad guy. Dave Winer says Claude grasps code and old web systems like LBBS at a startling level, tying AI to decades of personal computing history.
Nimgimli is still hooked on Solarpunk’s floating-island crafting loop, even if the airship progression and vanishing chicken jank are very videogame-y. Ellie says Islets delivers the floating-islands hook, metroidvania exploration, and bullet-hell combat, with stronger character writing than Sheepo. Wilhelm notes Steam’s 2026 Summer Sale still matters, even if the old rush is gone and deep discounts like Wreckfest make the wishlist worth a peek. The Chronicler spotlights Battle Box: Napoleonic Wars, a pocket-size black-powder wargame that still squeezes in terrain, tactics, and quick 30-minute sessions. Michael recommends Caper in the Castro as a charming, campy HyperCard adventure and a moving queer gaming time capsule from 1989. Anarchae’s week is sick days, soccer, Zelda, Father Brown mysteries, and a heartfelt reminder why Pride still matters. Bhagpuss rounds up recent listening with enthusiasm, from Grease Baby and Perennial to label-diving detours and a side of PC hardware chaos. Bruce Schneier’s comment thread veers hard from squid fleets into Venezuela quake aid, AUKUS, Taiwan, and broader geopolitical doomposting. Tobold gets practical about Belgium’s heat wave, weighing a costly split air conditioner as climate change pushes summer temperatures toward 40°C. Dave Winer wrestles with Claude forgetting to fetch needed context, calls out hallucinations, and keeps digging for better ways to steer it. Scopique rethinks GM prep for a Secret World module, arguing the missing piece isn’t big plot or tiny details but flexible side-quest-sized 'medium pictures.' Jimmy points readers to a new Analog Antiquarian entry on Henry VI, Part 2.
Sey’s roundup spotlights Bugscraper, A Fighter’s Nova: Mindara, Deer & Boy’s soundtrack, a Sonic 2 anniversary cartridge, and this month’s TUNIC club. Magi digs Dead as Disco’s beat-'em-up-meets-rhythm premise and style, even if the Early Access execution doesn’t fully keep the groove. Bhagpuss bristles at Steam’s alarmingly punitive 'REVOKED!' wording for a key notice, and the subtext is really the whole rant. Kimimi falls hard for Escalator Action, praising its Elevator Action riff, twin-stick mouse aiming, recoil, and varied guns. Mailvaltar breaks down low-spender gacha math, using Genshin Impact and Neverness to Everness to argue there’s a middle ground beyond whales or F2P. Wilhelm shares co-op Stardew Valley discoveries with his daughter, including a missed luau redo and other first-time 1.6-era surprises. Jamie Zawinski runs through recent watches, especially loving The Bride! and Mother Mary, with side praise for The Peripheral on rewatch. Thomas is adding film deep dives and older-movie reviews to the site, while keeping gaming as the main course. Warner ties Apple’s Mac and iPad price hikes to AI-driven memory shortages, and thinks this squeeze is only getting started. Bruce Schneier points to a million leaked passports as a nasty example of high-value IDs getting exposed by a low-value verification system. Dave Winer mourns Om Malik, riffs on Claude as an alien pair-programmer, and argues interop matters more than open source alone. Brennan argues conventional Git commit types flatten writing work, and makes the case for commit messages that fit bloggers better.
Patrick finds Forgotten Realms: Underdark uneven but increasingly rewarding, especially when its gloriously absurd 3.5 prestige classes get weirdly specific. Marc traces Taito’s long soccer-game history, from 1967 electro-mechanical tables to Tomohiro Nishikado’s 1973 Soccer and beyond. Scopique is thrilled Elite Dangerous is getting ship interiors, and sees ED, No Man’s Sky, and Star Citizen converging on similar space-sim feature sets. Sweetie praises Illusion of Itehari’s gorgeous art and surprisingly gripping political drama, where the otome romance sometimes takes a back seat. Belghast is still deep in Guild Wars 2—Tequatl, housing chores, world completion—and also grinding Path of Exile II on the side. Wilhelm digs into Forza Horizon 6’s race-heavy progression, admitting tight, wet night street races and twitchy supercars are absolutely not his thing. Andrew Plotkin still wants Valve’s new Steam Machine, but $1400 prices him out, so the Steam Deck-on-a-TV plan gets another chance. Stargrace celebrates 20 years of blogging about games and life, reflecting on moves, studio work, family, and growing into herself. Frank says GeoGuessr made the World Cup click by turning countries from abstractions into real places, deepening soccer’s cultural and political charge. Bhagpuss writes from the coolest room in the house during a brutal heatwave, after a storm dumped floodwater into the conservatory. Axxuy adds blog stats with wc, awk, rg, and bash, a nice reminder that static sites make nerdy word counts delightfully easy. Dave Winer says coding with Claude demands skepticism: debugging needs proof, not confident AI word salad about bugs it may not understand.
Shintar digs into Blizzard’s rumored Project Camelot and an older Warcraft franchise leak that suddenly looks a lot more plausible. Wilhelm sizes up Valve’s Steam Machine as a big-screen Steam Deck-style Linux console-PC, with queue signup now and $1,049/$1,349 storage options. Roger delivers a bleak take on UK politics, where social-media misinformation, impatience, and zero-cost expectations leave democracy stuck in paralysis. Juhis celebrates the unglamorous community magic of 'stacking chairs'—the practical, no-ego work that actually makes events like PyCon CZ happen. Jamie Zawinski points to a gripping look at Ukraine’s resistance using honey traps, hidden manuals, and drone-strike intel under Russian occupation. Warner shares a lovely family memory from Always Patsy Cline, where his grandson’s flower-in-hand sprint to Grandma T beat everyone’s cameras. Blockade85 recounts a brutal poison ivy flare-up, steroid treatment, and the unsettling possibility that post-Covid brain fog has been dragging him down for years. Bruce Schneier highlights spyware stuffing WMD-themed comment text into JavaScript to spook naive LLM malware analysis without affecting execution. Dave Winer argues Bluesky-style apps should let readers filter posts while writers publish once, instead of forcing everyone into 300-character boxes. JJM shares a scrappy Linux fix: a bash-and-cron temperature alarm for a suspend bug that leaves PC fans idle and YouTube pushing CPU/GPU heat. Brennan turns memento mori into a grammar-and-philosophy meditation, arguing 'you must die' frames mortality as duty, not just forecast.
Shintar says SWTOR PvP Season 10 still has charm, but stale queues, old maps, and years without new modes are wearing thin. Azuriel balks at Valve’s $1049 Steam Machine without a controller, arguing the price makes it niche rather than Steam Deck-level disruptive. Bhagpuss finds Wild Tactics a polished XCOM-style tactics game with anthropomorphic animals, sharp dialogue, and an easy Steam wishlist add. Krista enjoys ReStory’s Steam Next Fest demo for its chill Tokyo repair-shop sim, satisfying device restoration, and story choices around customers. Luna says Thrifty Business nails the cozy thrift-store vibe with approachable management, surprise inventory, and customer stories that add real heart. Wilhelm sees Xbox’s thin margins, layoffs, and harder monetization pushes as Microsoft steering the gaming division toward enshittification. Warner keeps it simple and sweet: a day with the grandkids, a few trees climbed, and good pictures to prove it. Emily recounts a Star Trek dream where Worf’s rejection spirals into a tornado, then reads the storm as a symbol for sudden emotional upheaval. Belghast shares a melancholy 90s-leaning mixtape built around Toad the Wet Sprocket and Jars of Clay, as personal and jangly as advertised. Jeff Atwood launches Off By One on TWiT with Leo Laporte, pitching a long, upbeat tech show about computing, the open web, and assorted chaos. Dave Winer argues RSS already supports extensions, so reinventing it from scratch just wastes effort and hurts interoperability. Brennan digs into prolific writers like G.K. Chesterton to understand what compulsive, high-volume writing looks like as a daily life.
Stargrace’s WoW gold-making week was quiet, but 500k profit and a switch to 24-hour auctions still kept the transmog machine moving. Kimimi digs into Sakura Taisen GB 2’s wrecked-battleship RPG adventure, loving its LIPS choices, expressive pixel art, and eager-rookie charm. Wilhelm checks Fantasy Critic League week 25, tracking score swings for Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II, The Adventures of Elliot, and Dave the Diver. Tobold gives Pillars of Eternity another shot, helped by its new turn-based mode and a renewed craving for Infinity Engine-style CRPGs. Thomas argues Star Wars games shine brightest when you’re a bounty hunter, pilot, or grunt instead of another Jedi with galaxy-saving destiny. WCRobinson celebrates post 300 with a hype list of favorite 2026 gaming summer reveals, plus quick thoughts on showcases and big headliner announcements. Andrew Plotkin shares a playful fake TTRPG jam entry, a downloadable sci-fi character generator riff where surviving character creation is part of the joke. Juhis links Fantastic Four, The Last of Us, and The Mandalorian through Pedro Pascal’s dad-energy, with spoiler-light reactions to all three. Tipa rounds up recent reads, praising Witch King, diving back into Dungeon Crawler Carl, and unpacking T. Kingfisher’s darker fairy-tale horror. Bruce Schneier flags the privacy mess around athlete wearables, especially how biometric data could aid surveillance, contracts, and sports gambling. Dave Winer riffs on AI as an all-purpose assistant for coding and publishing, then veers into a blunt, frustrated take on ex-presidents and Trump.
Stargrace finally wraps Guild Wars 2’s Dragon Bash annual, banking achievement points, candy cash, and the usual Fashion Wars rewards. CrazyKinux gets a practical EVE Online Hookbill lesson: pick brawler or kiter, stop overfitting, and actually use the hull’s Scourge bonus. Bhagpuss comes away cool on The Fifth Bell: pretty Strasbourg vibes, shaky narrative pull, and AI-made art and audio raising eyebrows. Emily finds Immortal Heartfelt Memories way more emotional than expected, as its hidden cat stories hit hard on pet grief and remembrance. Nicole digs into Konami’s 1996 Target Panic PCB, where a cheap ceramic resonator explains a lot about this barebones arcade test board. Belghast settles back into Guild Wars 2 with Wizard’s Vault chores, Orr group runs, and the always-relaxing grind of world completion. Wilhelm flags GoG’s summer sale as an early Steam-beater, with DRM-free classics, newer games, and a cheap shout for Wreckfest. The Chronicler gives Silver Bayonet a brisk overview, highlighting its Ia Drang setting, asymmetric design, and refreshed GMT anniversary edition. Warner hits pause on Sunday Morning Reading this week, citing family loss, grandkid time, and celebrations around his wife’s theatre gig. Brennan walks through adding Webmentions to an Eleventy static site with webmention.io, making decentralized replies and likes actually practical. Bruce Schneier’s comments thread veers into AI ‘cognitive debt,’ arguing fast code and vibe development pile up maintenance and security risks. Dave Winer ricochets from Claude’s stateless coding to old DaveNet layouts and why silos still trap developers off the open web.
Nimgimli hits a content wall in Neverness to Everness, then unexpectedly falls hard for the bigger, easier-on-the-eyes Switch 2. Azuriel says Stop Killing Games hit an EU wall, but the fight over keeping purchased games playable is far from over. Shintar recalls how WoW Classic turned from a lonely nostalgia trip into casual Zul'Gurub runs and a renewed social raiding life. Wilhelm finds No Man’s Sky runs well on Switch 2, then gets pleasantly surprised by Hello Games making cross-saves actually work. Jimmy revisits Heroes of Might and Magic II and III, weighing brightness, complexity, and why strategy games need the balance just right. Thomas says retro blobber Dverghold looks promising, though its July 22 Early Access launch brings the usual indie gamble. Anarchae’s week is sickness, soccer, Zelda, eye-exam aggravation, and a John Dickson Carr mystery keeping things weird. Roger explains why UK by-elections attract joke candidates, and how satire has basically become part of the democratic pageantry. UltrViolet skips gaming, grumbles about Hugo breakage, and gets absorbed digitizing his grandfather’s World War I diaries and records. Tofutush goes to Toy Story 5 with her dad, then spirals into funny, thorny questions about sentient toys, ownership, and Disney logic. Dave Winer argues WordPress should act like part of the web, not a silo, with interchangeable APIs that give writers real choice. Juhis tackles writer’s block by going to the pub and writing around the idea until the real post finally loosens up.
Heartless likes Guild Wars 3’s no-subscription, no-pay-to-win pitch, but wonders how ArenaNet will handle convenience, gold, and time-saving monetization. Retro XP hosts Madeline Blondeau on Bio Force Ape, tracing the canceled NES oddity from magazine previews to its weird 2005 prototype resurfacing. Sweetie reflects on autistic headcanons in games, from Sonic’s Tails to Persona 5’s Yusuke, and why seeing herself in them feels validating. Belghast eases back into Guild Wars 2 for world bosses and weeklies, enjoying its easy drop-in play while chemo still limits his stamina. Ellie reviews Mika and the Witch’s Mountain as a cozy, Kiki’s Delivery Service-flavored parcel game that turns broom flight into a charming hook. Wilhelm digs into EVE Online’s May MER and argues that a rising ISK supply chart alone doesn’t prove there’s actually a problem. The Chronicler spotlights Dice Commandos, a compact solo tactical dice puzzler with 80s action-movie vibes and approachable wargame mechanics. Emily enjoys Nora Roberts’ The Mirror for its slow-burn romance, spooky manor drama, and Hester Dobbs haunting every step toward the big open house. Warner argues AI still doesn’t pencil out, with token costs, pricier hardware, and on-device memory demands all pushing the bill higher. Dave Winer jumps from Knicks joy to a sharp thought on Claude Code: future dev tools may need psychology-backed rules for working with people. Brennan says writing publicly every day changed everything, opening friendships, investigations, and a creative path away from genAI work. Margot says building her own site made writing awkward, but now it’s smoother and she’s back with posts on Steam Next Fest, Crimson Desert, and more.
Stargrace plants a new Wurm Online deed on Deliverance, using Quail Point as a priest retreat, treasure-map base, and excuse to build slowly. Tipa’s Frosthaven party sprints through Crystal Trench, with the Trapper’s rear-guard traps doing standout work against wolves in a relatively smooth scenario. CrazyKinux celebrates ten episodes with an EVE Online chat about faction warfare, gate camps, corp culture, and Black Rise Regional News. Magi argues Steam Next Fest needs clear generative-AI badges and filters, because buried disclosures make it too hard to avoid AI-heavy demos. Scopique returns with mixed feelings on Guild Wars 3, Summer Games Fest catch-up plans, and a reread before diving into Exodus: Helium Sea. Wilhelm digs into No Man’s Sky’s Swarm expedition, where time-gated community missions and faction competition make progress slower and more collective than usual. Thomas comes away newly hyped for EXODUS, saying the gameplay reveal finally makes its Mass Effect-style space opera look lively and fun. Juhis answers an IndieWeb Carnival prompt with a tiny ode to Chris Ramsey’s perfect 'No way!?' from that memorable Taskmaster shoe challenge. Joar reflects on aging, ambition, distance, and family, arguing the scoreboards we obsess over at 30 usually matter far less than we think. Mike revisits the Apple IIgs with fresh appreciation, framing Apple’s oddball 16-bit machine as both collectible curiosity and genuinely clever hardware. Tim Bray’s Quamina update gets delightfully nerdy, weighing NFA flexibility against DFA speed while regex support turns finite automata into a benchmark headache. Dave Winer connects Jason Calacanis’s open-source bounty idea, AI-as-alien riffing, and Knicks chemistry into a loose, very webby meditation on reach and teamwork.
Just past the first door in Crystal Trench, wolves pursuing from behind, polar bear and additional door in front.
Aywren calls time on her 12-year Steam backlog project, deciding free games, Windrose, and Paralives matter more than chasing library stats. Frostilyte is impressed by Prophet Margin, a trade-route puzzler where scarce resources, card-built cities, and tribute to the gods make optimization deliciously twisty. Kimimi loves Bomberman ’94 for its easygoing, cheerfully weird vibe, where bananas, penguins, and explosions somehow make classic Bomberman feel downright cozy. Krista spotlights Stick A Round’s Next Fest demo, a nostalgic stick-battling romp with custom weapons, chaotic minigames, seasons, and cute animal avatars. Luna swaps in a quick comic while her Thrifty Business review waits, turning the idea of a save point into a light personal prompt. Shintar digs into World of Warcraft: Midnight’s zones, especially loving the revamped Eversong Woods and Silvermoon despite some old navigation awkwardness. Belghast’s Path of Exile II minion build gets sturdier with Raven’s Flock and a Lich swap, even if the real test still lies ahead. Wilhelm finds Windrose a familiar survival-crafter with a fun pirate vibe and a welcome early boat upgrade, even if he’s still hunting for the right angle. Roger argues the UK’s under-16 social media ban is a blunt, politically easy answer to a messy problem, with gaming-platform spillover still murky. Bhagpuss reacts to the UK under-16 social media ban with skepticism, wondering where blogs, YouTube, Twitch, Minecraft, and Roblox actually fit. Jamie Zawinski shares a wild ruling letting Strike 3 sue Meta over torrenting porn, with the judge plainly unconvinced by the rogue-employee excuse. Dave Winer sketches an RSS-only messaging network and muses on AI verbosity, pushing a very web-native, replaceable vision of social software.
Tipa recaps a bloody Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel, owning missed rulings and landing on the real lesson: clever, non-combat play beats dying heroically. Frostilyte comes away impressed by Desktop Explorer, a clever Next Fest demo that turns file-manager fiddling into cryptic puzzles with great atmosphere. Bhagpuss skips the AI post and instead shares a loose, screenshot-filled wander through Neverness To Everness apartments, flatmates, drive-ins, and vibe-heavy curiosities. Belghast’s crew keeps it short but lively, bouncing through Forza Horizon 6, Voidling Bound, Fields of Mistria, Path of Exile II, and Pokémon Horizons. Wilhelm’s Fantasy Critic week mostly means Gothic 1 Remake sliding, Beastro waiting on reviews, and Summer Game Fest release-date fallout. Michael delivers a delightfully unserious game-design wishlist—moose, FMV, taunting weirdos, recurring assets—and one serious hard no on AI. Warner rounds up essays on normality, AI consciousness, bad CEOs, slow news, scams, and why weird, inefficient creativity still matters. Dave Winer is all-in on the Knicks’ championship formula, with a quick nod that FeedLand’s Gift Articles feed looks great in his blogroll. Cliffski shares a sunny solar-farm check-in: sheep-trimmed grass, one odd-looking panel, clean arrays, and a deserved rant about pointless planning requirements. Nik says returning to PyCon US after years away was emotional, and the real draw was finally seeing Python friends in person again. Bruce Schneier flags a proposed FCC rule that would tie phone plans to IDs and addresses, raising big privacy and surveillance concerns. Brennan, inspired by Good Internet Magazine, weighs starting an IndieWeb publication with open eyes about burnout, shipping costs, and doing it imperfectly.
A group of minis on an orangish dry erase grid facing a larger monster cyclops mini.
Tipa returns to Dune: Awakening after server-transfer gymnastics, with Funcom’s coming PvP changes making the survival-crafter comeback feel worth watching. Nimgimli went from lukewarm to hooked on Neverness to Everness, staying current on the story while happily puttering around its city and systems. Shintar digs into SWTOR Legacy Reborn’s ending and what broader Force sensitivity could mean for non-Force classes and future combat styles. Kimimi revels in Omega Boost’s late-’90s PlayStation excess, from lavish FMV swagger to flashy free-ish mech movement and satisfying auto-targeting. Emily had a blast with Resident Evil 4’s Separate Ways, enjoying Ada Wong’s grappling-hook mobility, arsenal, and parallel spin on Leon’s story. Wes tees up Namco 246 and 256 emulation via a PCSX2 fork, with side notes on MiSTer, Game Boy Advance hardware, and preservation. Wilhelm tried Stardew Valley co-op with his daughter on Switch, but tiny text and a dim Switch Lite quickly made the farm life a squint-heavy chore. The Friendly Necromancer is using ChatGPT to prototype a niche poetry-themed Unity mobile game, arguing AI finally clicks better here than it did with VR. Roger reflects on volunteering at a Trussell Trust food bank, pushing back on lazy myths and stressing how many working people still need help. Dave Winer is all in on the Knicks’ title run, shouting out their depth, heart, and late-game rope-a-dope against the Spurs. Juhis recaps Future Frontend 2026 in Espoo, praising Dipoli, the design-and-development split, and the cozy conference vibe. Jamie Zawinski dryly notes that putting heat-belching AI data centers in hot, water-starved places is obviously a terrible idea.
Character portraits from Dune: Awakening, Palworld and Valheim.
Frostilyte digs Green Mist over Portland’s psychic detective setup and timeline-hopping mystery, though the note-taking tools sound a bit thin. Azuriel sizes up fresh trailers and release dates for Fable, Palworld 1.0, Valheim 1.0, and Abiotic Factor’s upcoming Entropic Break DLC. Belghast checks in from chemo recovery while pushing deeper into Path of Exile II maps and planning a minion build around The Raven’s Flock. Wilhelm runs through EverQuest Legends preorders, beta dates, and EverQuest II’s new Wuoshi TLE server with his usual skeptical MMO eye. The Chronicler unboxes The Charge of the 3 Kings and sketches its asymmetric Navas de Tolosa 1212 wargame systems and card-driven initiative. Thomas finds The Tragedy at Deer Creek beautifully made and emotionally effective, even if its late ghost-story turn undercuts the grounded mystery for him. Anarchae’s weekly digest mixes TCAF manga-panel notes, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sessions, and mixed feelings on John Dickson Carr’s Hag's Nook and The Mad Hatter Mystery. Tobold contrasts steady dividend-paying value stocks with SpaceX’s speculative IPO pop, arguing the pricing only works if fantastical growth arrives. Tim Bray rounds up anti-hype AI reading, arguing GenAI is making people miserable and the OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX frenzy feels deeply bubble-like. Bruce Schneier’s weekly squid post spotlights a squid-inspired fluid pump and leaves the comments open for whatever security news he missed. Dave Winer wants one OPML for podcast subscriptions and hacked around Mastodon’s messy gift-article RSS with a little app and Claude’s help. Jimmy points readers to The Analog Antiquarian for a new piece on Henry VI, Part 1.
John can barely explain Emuurom without underselling it, but his take on its scan-driven, combat-free puzzle metroidvania is a glowing recommendation. Tipa turns Star Trek Online’s new outpost setup into a hilarious briefing about tetryon storms, killer flora, and a definitely respectful alien calling you “Sucker.” Sey rounds up indie wishlist picks like Signet City, I’M YOUR HOST, and Wild n Chill, plus the usual crowdfunding and soundtrack chatter. Bhagpuss does a breezy Daybreak summer-events check-in, spotlighting EverQuest II’s Tinkerfest and the usual delightfully odd seasonal chaos. Krista’s Nintendo Direct highlights home in on Pokémon Pokopia’s expansion pass and a long-rumored Zelda reveal that clearly hit hard. Belghast is having a great time with Spirit Crossing on Steam, praising the co-op vibes while side-eyeing its time-gated quests and daily-play structure. Ellie finds Sheepo the least exciting of Kyle Thompson’s games, with more puzzle-platforming and fewer of the bullet-hell flourishes she loves. Wilhelm dives into No Man’s Sky’s Expedition 22, wary of forced co-op swarm battles but curious how The Swarm actually plays out. Michael says A Lost Man’s short World War 1 adventure demo nails its near-the-front atmosphere, dry humor, and striking art in motion. Axxuy’s post is exactly what it says on the tin: a very minimal note about buying a new notebook. Warner argues a German ruling against Google’s AI Overviews makes the obvious point: humans behind AI still own the fallout from hallucinated falsehoods. Dave Winer mixes Knicks euphoria with a pitch for AI-assisted web software that gives writers more power online.
Star Trek: Outposts Unknown key art, showing three folks in Starfleet uniforms looking over a base surrounded by alien flora. A starship, a planet and a Space Death Cyclone (SDC) are in the sky above a range of distant mountains.
Roger argues RV There Yet? might be more fun to watch than play, thanks to chaotic co-op physics, teamwork disasters, and great YouTube videos. Nimgimli admires Tunic’s polish, combat, and secrets, but the vague map, unreadable language, and opaque story make it a pass personally. Frostilyte previews The King Is Watching’s free Shifting Sands update, a desert map full of chaos, new enemies, and Hades-style modular difficulty. Kimimi finds Taiko no Tatsujin DS a fascinating but awkward handheld remix, where touchscreen drumming works just well enough to be charming. Shintar speculates on BlizzCon’s WoW Classic future, weighing whether Blizzard will consolidate servers or keep piling on more versions. Sweetie is thrilled Persona 6 finally feels real, digging into the teaser, leaked character designs, and chatter about possible dual protagonists. Wilhelm surveys 2026 MMORPG sub prices after LOTRO’s increase and, yeah, free options are everywhere even if cash shops still run the show. The Chronicler invites fellow wargamers to Wargameron 2026 in Poland, pitching four days of all-in-one gaming, meals, rooms, and monster tables. Tim Bray serves up an AI-free Long Links with books, music, humor, political economy, and a welcome break from the usual AI deluge. Dave Winer is all in on the Knicks’ wild comeback over the Spurs, framing it as the kind of sports moment fans live for. Brennan makes the straightforward case that web accessibility isn’t checklist theater; it makes sites better for disabled users and basically everyone else. Bruce Schneier flags Leonardo’s plan to add Bluetooth tracking to license plate readers, making an already invasive surveillance tool even creepier.
Stargrace’s WoW gold-making week was modest, but she’s staying flexible and hoping a 48-hour auction rhythm helps restore consistency. Bhagpuss surveys MMO news with EverQuest Legends, Stars Reach, and Valheim grabbing attention while Guild Wars 3 mostly lurks in the background. Krista rounds up Summer Game Fest 2026 favorites, with Rayman Legends Retold and Final Fantasy VII Revelation leading the hype. Emily argues that calling games “accessible” can mean platform availability too, not just disability features, after Sony’s Wolverine-on-PS5 frustration. Wilhelm breaks down EVE Online’s Cradle of War, where CCP pairs a PvP-safe starter region with a bigger push into faction warfare. Tobold uses his pricey Concordia Special Edition pledge to mull board-game bling, from wooden bits and metal coins to deluxe excess. Thomas came away impressed by Pulsebreaker, a Resident Evil-style survival horror demo with fixed cameras, retro vibes, and a smart focus-based combat twist. Andrew Plotkin spotlights surprise indies The Archives of Trevosa, Hypogea, and The 7th Guest Remake with his usual sharp design-eye. Belghast shares a rough cancer-treatment update, connecting severe fatigue and weight loss with the appetite-suppressing effects of tirzepatide. Axxuy’s take on LLMs is refreshingly personal: if conversation takes effort, they’d rather spend it talking to actual people. Juhis says wallabag has quietly become the ideal Pocket replacement for saving articles, note-taking, and offline reading without demanding attention. Dave Winer gripes about Claude going full backseat coder, questions Meta glasses privacy, and sees the Knicks’ 2026 run as a turning point.
Tipa shifts from survival-crafting marathons to cozy Switch 2 catch-up, especially Pokopia's weirdly utopian Ditto setup and some Tomodachi Life. Bhagpuss is baffled and intrigued by Neverness To Everness, a massive hit that feels less cyberpunk action and more urban life sim with anomalies. Luna says Sledding Game is a silly, low-stakes multiplayer hangout where frog-butt sledding, fishing, racing, and friendly lobbies are the whole point. Emily shares a Transformers Prime dream where Optimus is lured off by a strange beacon and a bottle of perfume might snap him out of it. Marc argues the SNES version of SimCity deserves a re-release, with Nintendo's role in Will Wright's path and the game's open-ended weirdness front and center. Wilhelm flags Valheim finally hitting 1.0 with Deep North on September 9, plus PS5, Switch 2, and promised full cross-play. Jimmy traces Planescape: Torment from its newly unearthed pitch doc to the desktop, highlighting how rough origins fed a future CRPG classic. WCRobinson digs into Resident Evil Requiem as Capcom's big blend of first-person horror, third-person action, and dual leads Grace Ashcroft and Leon. Warner comes away from Apple's WWDC 26 cautiously unconvinced, watching OS27 design tweaks, parental controls, and the new Siri AI with a wait-and-see shrug. Bruce Schneier spotlights a fixed Zcash flaw that could have minted fake coins, then uses it to underline his broader distrust of blockchain fragility. Dave Winer says Scripting News can't realistically move to HTTPS without breaking its archives, so he's pointing readers to an HTTPS WordPress mirror instead. Aywren launches an FFXIV YouTube channel aimed at shy, introverted, and socially anxious MMO players, building on her own hard-won comfort with grouping.
Screenshot of a Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous character in chainmail, dark skin and white hair saying "Where TF are the SANDWORMS?" in a medieval banquet hall while a tiefling sitting at a large table drinks from a large stein.
Stargrace celebrates Wurm Online's 20th with a purple dragon sighting, community events, and a post-party hunt for a new Deliverance deed spot. Cliffski gets into the weeds on making Ridiculous Space Battles fully deterministic, and why tiny simulation drift can wreck balance, scoring, and sanity. CrazyKinux rounds up a tense quiet week in EVE Online as Cradle of War looms, from expansion notes to lore beats and retention chatter. Nimgimli finally wraps Eternal Strands after 18 months, liking its world and core combat but finding the giant-climbing fights increasingly frustrating. Shintar says SWTOR Galactic Season 10 was a slog, with objective design and repeat bosses finally souring her long-running cross-server routine. Nicole digs into the Sega Genesis TMSS mess, unpacking how the trademark-based lockout actually worked and why it's weirder than the usual story. Oya comes away floored by Disco Elysium, praising its politics, grief, humor, and storytelling as way more than a standard detective RPG. Belghast and crew bounce through Life Below, Spirit Crossing, Summer Game Fest, Guild Wars 3, and a deep Path of Exile II build-crafting rabbit hole. Wilhelm tracks a messy Fantasy Critic week, with Gothic Remake landing mid, Mechanicus II slipping, and Summer Game Fest suddenly flooding the board with dates. The Chronicler spotlights Battle Commander: Volume I, a deluxe Napoleonic wargame built around cube-pull activation, command decisions, and playability. Tobold finishes Arydia, then wrestles with the very board-game problem of what to do with a huge legacy box he’ll probably never replay. Dave Winer argues AI coverage is stuck on hallucinations and says WordPress still has huge potential for open, non-lock-in web writing.
Bhagpuss greets the Guild Wars 3 announcement with more obligation than excitement, colored by a long, complicated history with Guild Wars 2. Kimimi argues Shadow of the Beast is more than parallax eye candy, selling its world through atmosphere, direction, and surprisingly RPG-like exploration. Krista finds One Move Away a charming strategy puzzler where packing, overstacking, and three character stories turn moving house into a satisfying brain teaser. Wilhelm digs into Guild Wars 3’s reveal: Orr, Vael spirit companion, parkour-y movement, and a long wait with beta penciled in for late 2027. Thomas likes HellSlave II’s solo blobber setup, flexible respecs, and loot-heavy combat, even if the early demo sounds pretty punishing. Andrew Plotkin revisits George Alec Effinger, The Zork Chronicles, and an old Usenet correction that neatly upends his assumptions about Infocom tie-ins. Roger says local theatre has become more accessible, audience-friendly, and better value than London premium shows, with The Lion King as one standout. Warner frames Trump’s visible decline through the familiar, painful reality of aging relatives, arguing denial only works until everyone admits the obvious. Emily logs a gloriously weird Resident Evil-flavored dream starring a parasite monster, Ashley Graham, Luis, pistols, knives, and inexplicably missed propane tanks. Dave Winer is delightfully rattled by the Knicks going up 2-0 on the road, to the point reality itself seems briefly negotiable. Jamie Zawinski wants the least-annoying way to fire a 433 MHz remote from the command line, with zero Alexa, Siri, or cloud nonsense. Bruce Schneier flags a prototype AI worm that carries its own LLM onto hacked machines, calling it the closest thing yet to Brunner’s Shockwave Rider vision.
Stargrace celebrates Wurm Online turning 20, a singular sandbox MMO that shaped her love of community and even launched her games career. Azuriel’s Guild Wars 3 reaction is negative hype: the reveal makes Guild Wars 2’s long Legendary grind suddenly feel pointless. Magi likes Indie Pass as a cheap, genre-spanning indie subscription on PC that could boost discovery while still steering players toward buying games later. Kimimi praises Kuro no Ken’s gorgeous PlayStation remake art and brisk, compact storytelling, where the Black Dragon’s damage feels immediate and personal. Mailvaltar marks nine years of blogging, reflecting on changing tastes and why Neverness to Everness scratches that MMO-ish solo-gaming itch. Wilhelm says Forza Horizon 6 starts guided, then drowns you in map markers and gloriously silly spectacle races against planes and even a mech. The Chronicler shares a fan-made Commands & Colors Ancients EPIC Adrianople scenario, mixing big-table wargame fun with a solid Roman history lesson. Anarchae’s weekly digest covers settling into a new routine, replaying Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and dipping back into FFXIV. Warner sees hope in a ruling against Trump branding the Kennedy Center, while warning the damage to the arts institution runs much deeper. Dave Winer bounces from AI-powered blog search to Knicks Finals joy and why he’s using EMX over Bluesky, trolls and all. Brennan connects Taleb’s skin-in-the-game to art and the IndieWeb, arguing real craft means using what you build and risking something personal. Juhis joins Junited with daily link-sharing, pitching it as a friendly excuse to discover bloggers and celebrate the wider blogosphere.
Frostilyte rounds up Thinky Direct 2026 highlights, shouting out clever puzzle hooks like Pikku Adventure’s language deciphering and Mimic Meadows’ shapeshifting critters. Sey spotlights standout Latin American Games Showcase picks, from Bibidi Bibidi and Colorbound to Ghostless and Magical Blush, with wishlist energy throughout. Heartless talks himself into Guild Wars 3 hopium after fans spot a maybe-backwards 3 hidden in ArenaNet’s teaser art. Bhagpuss gleefully wins Lacrimosa from Neverness to Everness’s new 1.1 banner with leftover dice, and yes, gets totally got by it. Shintar explains why WoW: Midnight professions click for her: meaningful, sometimes painful choices that feel more Classic than modern retail. Belghast is vibing with a chill Path of Exile 2 minion build, but says mapping still suffers from cluttered layouts and too many annoying choke points. Wilhelm eyes Stars Reach early access with skepticism, arguing “soon” likely means soon soon and the current playtests are basically what buyers will get. The Friendly Necromancer turns Windrose into pirate Minecraft, building triangle houses, sky-high nerd poles, and a future house-party obstacle course. Jamie Zawinski fumes that a newly greenlit Stargate revival is dead again, and points the angry fist squarely at Bezos. Emily dives into The Cybertronic Spree’s Darkest Hour EP, loving its heavy Transformers energy, especially the Megatron, Unicron, and Hot Rod/Arcee tracks. Dave Winer marvels at the Knicks reaching the Finals, mixing disbelief, old Melo-era scars, and his usual Mets-fan fatalism. Bruce Schneier says the Meta AI support hack isn’t just one bug—it’s a sign LLM chatbots aren’t trustworthy for account recovery.
CrazyKinux returns with Rixx and first guest Oz for a loose chat on EVE Online markets, FanFest, trading tools, and how AI changed the toolkit. Magi says Far Far West nails roguelike shooter progression, making upgrades feel meaningful, customizable, and fun instead of one more grindy timesink. Krista runs through favorite Sims 4 add-ons, with City Living, Get Famous, and family-focused picks standing out from years of expansions and packs. Marc revisits Compile’s Gulkave as a rough-looking but technically impressive 8-bit shooter, especially given the MSX, SG-1000, and Master System hardware. Sweetie is upbeat that Dragon Quest XII restarted as Beyond Dreams, ditching the darker Flames of Fate for something closer to classic DQ vibes. Ellie reaches the mainline Ace Attorney finish line with Spirit of Justice, a bittersweet finale that throws Phoenix Wright into mortal peril in Khura’in. Wilhelm wraps EVE Online’s Warpath event as decent but grindy, with mining tasks a slog and competitive bits bringing out New Eden’s worst instincts. The Chronicler spotlights GMT’s Into the Woods, a GBACW Shiloh game with chit-pull activations, ten scenarios, and a strong fog-of-war feel. Joar contrasts decades of beige business travel with a newer, slower kind shaped by maps, history books, and finally choosing trips worth taking. Tofutush’s May brought finishing first year, surprise grades, a fun reverse-engineering course, travel plans for Xinjiang, and steady progress on reading and writing. Dave Winer argues for a social web for nobodies and says Claude makes wrangling big codebases and software complexity feel newly manageable. Tobold doubts AI will replace most work soon, arguing physical labor, customer-facing jobs, and the real cost of bots make the panic feel overblown.
Tipa breaks down why Colette’s mobile Performer crew stumbled against Kirai’s summons in Malifaux, then eyes Toni Ironsides as the anti-summoner answer. Frank uses a 500-year game thought experiment to poke at how aesthetic judgment, critical consensus, and cultural memory shape what survives. Heartless keeps Guild Wars 3 hype in check, guessing ArenaNet’s Summer Games Fest tease is more likely Guild Wars 2 news than a moonshot. Kimimi revisits the original Mortal Kombat via Legacy Kollection and finds a clunky fighter that still sells its tournament atmosphere incredibly well. Wilhelm dives into Windrose early access, joining Potshot for pirate survival, base-building, and a quick lesson that boars and dodos hit back. Thomas is souring hard on 007 First Light, blaming endless quips, weak Bond characterization, and boring walk-and-talk missions for the burnout. Warner enthusiastically recommends Om Malik’s Pinocchio essay as a sharp read on deception, politics, tech, and why the story still lands hard. Belghast assembles a love-song mixtape shaped by karaoke, old mixtape instincts, and deeply personal picks from The Cure to Bryan Adams. Brennan reflects on launching fanfiction.lol, the AO3 fork backlash, and how siloed social media leaves people unfamiliar with joyful, experimental web culture. Tim Bray says JSON at 25 is basically frozen, XML is mostly obsolete, and both are now old enough that nobody really wants surprises. Bruce Schneier revisits why cryptography excels at narrow math problems while real-world computer security stays a fragile, fast-moving arms race. Dave Winer ties his MacWrite-for-the-web idea to open-source ecosystem building and argues Twitter-likes should focus on better text features, not owning the web.