Hey! We have a Scholarship, which is how you know that we are the real deal and wholly dedicated to legitimate stuff. Here's an index of just how real: if you don't send in your shit by September 17th, you can't have the scholarship. That's what's up. I mean, you might not get it, even if you did send it in. We only have the one per year, which is why I examine these entries with incredible care. But if you need school moneys, and aim to positively impact the game industry with your education, well, I know a guy.

Hopefully Gabriel will deal with his dumb work or whatever so we can play Armello again in the afternoon. His aesthetic and the game's aesthetic are at odds, maybe, but it all kinda works too. I had a profoundly frustrating game myself last night, testing out some stuff with River, who is an archer wolf lady that can fire shots into battle before fights start. There are dice, which means randomness, which for some is a deal breaker; but you can make a bulwark against randomness by expanding your hand size a little. I tried, and failed, to penetrate the castle's defenses for four consecutive turns, utterly ready to win, and on six dice I never got the one symbol I needed. It taught me something pretty serious, which is that if I want to win, hoping to win isn't sufficient. I can curate my hand until I have a bounty of symbols and then make a play. I have no idea what I was fucking thinking.

I've been playing a bunch of Mad Max and I managed to capture this goofy glitch.

Gabriel is enjoying Star Wars: Aftermath, at least, this is what I've been told. Generally I take it upon myself to tell him whether or not he likes something, based on what is appropriate to like. Imagine a sign like they have at a carnival, you must be this tall to ride this ride, except instead of vertical height it measures the density and efficiency of your synapses.

I decided to live stream my first attempt at a multiplayer Armello game last night. You can watch the entire thing right here on our Twitch channel:

My magical code machine is still operating at max capacity, and we have loaded it with a few more codes if you still want to get in. Said codes can be transformed into access for whatever machine you want to play it on, in preparation for the beta which opens on the 24th of this month.

It gets mailed out a little later this month to members in Robert's newsletter, but here's the preview panel for this top secret shiz:

Max Max has been a pretty good medicine for returning to normal life, I would say. I have applied it to every exposed surface and I have been improved thereby.

I took off yesterday and played Mad Max pretty much all day. It's a fucking great game and I ended up sketching Max this morning to warm up.

When precisely a PAX ends is a philosophical thing. As I learned after the inaugural PAX South, for many attendees the show actually goes late into the night after the closing ceremony - and for Enforcers and Attendees, the show must be reduced to atoms and then transmitted to the next location. For me, PAX has two culminations: one, after we honor the Enforcers at the afterparty, and two (as previously described) when my phone is provisioned on my home network. Both things have come to pass. The portal is closed.

I couldn't get my mouse to work on the desk in the hotel, but I saw a little glossy advertisement for Hiveswap my son had been delighted by, and that is now my Mousepad. So! Thank you, Hiveswap, even if I find your subject matter indistinguishable from an lunar apocalypse cult.

I know we’ve been really quiet about Thornwatch and there has not been much from the twitter but there’s been a good reason. Behind the scenes we’ve been working on some really cool stuff. The Thornwatch panel just wrapped up and it was a big one. We made a couple announcements that explain why we went dark there for a bit. I know not everyone can make it to PAX though so I wanted to share it all here as well.

There's probably an astronomical metaphor to be made about how Black Ops 3 entered into some specific point in its arc while Grooby Doo, Kiko, and myself were doing some other space thing. The upshot - denuded of linguistic foofaraw - is that it's been a very long time since everything lined up and felt this way. The story in the strip is true, by the way. Technically speaking, you don't have to wait for two immobile months on the couch; if you have access to an Xbox One or a decent PC, it's possible that you could play in the phase that runs until Sunday, a period of time which "perfectly" lines up with PAX. Once the beta shuts down on the 30th, then you can wait two immobile months. Try passing the time by spinning a cocoon.

Here's a bunch of R6 codes in my magical code machine, which can be redeemed for the platform of your choice - apparently this Beta phase gets activated 9/24, so, you know, put it in your calendar I guess. I've been following it super close, especially the destructible terrain slash intelligence gathering phase. Maybe you have, too. It's been awhile. I really want to see what they've done with the place.

Some things are said to have been "a good idea at the time," the subtext being that it was actually a bad idea even at the moment of its conception, and that this badness was compressed during both the execution and aftermath into a kind of crystalline shit matrix. I think that my panel idea may exist somewhere in that continuum.

They did such a great job on these, holy shit. I can't believe it. if you're gonna be at PAX, they're available in Room 210 on the 2nd floor in the Tabletop Area for ten bucks. I don't know what the plans for them are outside of that, and I haven't seen the stat card - you'll have to ask them.