If you like to read season by season, you can do that now. Now that we have a full-time artist, my guess is that the typical Season Hiatus won't last especially long. We'll get together next Wednesday and write up the arcs.

Namco Bandai is shopping around different looks for a new Pac-Man game, which is interesting, until you get to their fourth new look and you freak the fuck out. That shouldn't be real, but it is real. It's apparently for a "casual" game. Don't care. Gabriel flipped his shit and wanted to do nothing but render the iconic character in the manner of famous artists throughout history. His voice had a strange timbre; refusing him seemed... unwise.

Looking over the FAQ for the City of Heroes shutdown reminds me of the time I found (and subsequently consumed/obsessed over/used as the template for a grim new religion) the documents which obliterated my parents' marriage. It is an utterly, cruelly, unsentimental, unsparingly frank assessment of the things people never, ever talk about until it's time to close the store.

There's like three hours left on the Dreadball Kickstarter, and (as is the way with boardgames on the crowdfunding service) it's gone bananas. Gabe makes an appearance as an MVP in the game, and I was going to announce it, but stretch goals don't last long on this thing and I never had the chance.

I wasn't at the last Thornwatch playtest. I made the mistake of relaxing for one second last Friday, one Goddamn second, and PAX finally caught up with me and laid me out. I understand that it was... a thing.

Having received word a second time that his account had been pilfered, even though his password was now an alphanumeric goulash, Gabriel decided on a bold new strategy for dealing with this sort of thing. He was contacted later that day to find that it had all been some kind of internal mistake, but Guild Wars 2 has no monthly fee; he can get back in whenever he wants to and not be out any money. In the meantime, he gets a t-o-n of free labor. He can't actually lose.

In case you missed it we announced PAX Australia at PAX Prime this year. It’s scheduled to lauch next year and we’ll be announcing all the details in the next few weeks. If you want to stay up to date on the latest happenings with PAX Down Under there are a couple places to watch.

Last night I ran another Thornwatch play test. This time we worked on how deck advancement will function as well as testing out some new mechanics for skill test resolution.

We have referenced Linkin Park once before, in another strip, which resulted in the kind of hurt one typically associates with the butt. "LP" is like a test strip for age; I can put it in my mouth, take it out, compare it to the color chart, and it will say "YOU ARE TOO OLD." I was starting to think I had reclaimed some measure of my former vigor, in accordance with theory that age can fluctuate as it pertains to cultural product, but then I saw a sign someone had stapled to a telephone pole and the urge to tear it down was overwhelming. "Nope," I said. "Still old."

People used to ask me what I liked about Donkey Konga, what was so great about it, which made me scrunch up my face. This is a game where you beat bongos with your friends; it needs to justification. It justifies itself. Fuck off.

Gabriel's Guild Wars account was hacked with all speed, shortly after it had begun to germinate mentally. He received a mail that said someone - "hopefully you!" - had made a password change request. Spoiler warning, obviously! It wasn't.

There has been a slight rebranding. Now you play as a powerful Thronguard from the Thronmarch.

Are you changing the IP?

I had a major play test last Friday for my Thornwatch game. It was the first time I tried to run a full adventure rather than just testing combat mechanics. If you're working on a game of your own I cannot stress enough just how important it is to get it in front of other people. Watching how my friends played it showed me right away what parts were working and what parts needed help.

Hugo House is a House for writers, it "fosters" them, it "builds community and engages the Pacific Northwest in the world of writing." They just had their second annual "Celebrity" Spelling Bee, and it was my pleasure to return as Arbiter. It's possible to manifest a smug, trebeckian sort of omniscience at something like this; all the words are spelled out on your paper. I still managed to be imperious, somehow.

There's lots to like, or not like, or to think and talk about as regards the onslaught of Wii U data. I happen to believe Wired's Chris Kohler does it best; he's got a psychic investment but it doesn't cloud his analysis. The price is a concern at the individual level and also at the meta/tactical level, but if - like Gabriel - you saw your son gleam in the presence of the device, you might feel compelled to see that glow again.