Category: news

Nintendo Direct 3/27/25 Review

Well, there’s been another Nintendo Direct, yesterday it was. And while there wasn’t much news on the Switch 2, one of the announcements was that there will be another Nintendo Direct on April 2, in just five days, about it.

The presenter this time was (check Wikipedia) Senior Managing Executive and Corporate Director Shinya Takahashi. He has some charisma, but we’re still a long way from the days where Shigeru Miyamoto, Reggis Fils-Amie and Satoru Iwata would co-host, one time as puppets.

Sometimes I take one of these videos and I riff on the games revealed, and the specifics of their revelation. To remind: the narrator’s delivery style gives me a rash, so I’ll try not to bring that up for literally every trailer. Operation 2025 Snark Go (37 minutes)!

Cold Open: Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake

After DQIII, these couldn’t be far behind, but it looks like substantial new content has been added, including a new character? The mainline series has been dropping references to the old Erdrick (a.k.a. Loto) games, maybe this connects to that?

Nintendo Direct for Switch 2 coming April 2

We already explained about this. I don’t know why they didn’t just pile it all into a single video, but it isn’t like people are going to miss out on the news.

No Sleep For Kaname Date – From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES, from Spike Chunsoft

It’s a visual novel style mystery adventure from the people who brought us the Mystery Dungeon series. Of course, they’ve made lots of visual novels, but in my view that distracts from them making more Mystery Dungeon games. I’m a bit upset by the news that Shiren 6 sold like one-tenth what it has in Japan. What gives, y’all? Show them some love!

RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, from Atlus, out June 19

Atlus’s turn to make a Very Japanese Game. This one is a remake of a Playstation 2 entry in the Megami Tensei series. It stars a mystery-solving apprentice detective who can also summon devils to help him in turn-based battles. If he can summon devils, one is given to wonder, what does he need the trainee detective gig for? I guess consorting with the Underworld doesn’t put food on the table.

Shadow Labyrinth, from Bandai Namco

Those two games are fine, not my usual thing but I recognize their merits. But this one, I don’t know….

I feel like, for the most part, Bandai Namco doesn’t really know what to do with Pac-Man. Well, I can tell them what to do: make more Pac-Man Championship Edition! It’s that easy, oh and also police their high score tables much better for hacked plays, Pac-Man CE 2’s scoreboards are overloaded with impossible scores. Or else, maybe more Pac-Man World games? Getting their ducks in a row with GCC and getting back the rights to Ms. Pac-Man? Instead we have one of the least necessary games we’ve seen in many a generation: the dark and gritty reboot to Pac-Man.

“With your memories gone, you have been summoned to a strange, unfamiliar world… where you’re greeted by a yellow orb known as PUCK.” Oh brudder, ignoring that we’re talking about Pac-Fucking-Man, that’s three hoary game trailer clichés in one sentence!

“But who is this spherical stranger?” ITS PAC-MAN. ITS OBVIOUSLY PAC-MAN. EVEN IF IT ISN’T PAC-MAN FOR LORE REASONS, IT’S PAC-MAN.

“Moored in a mysterious, maze-like world…” AUGH “…your battle for survival begins.” The narrator is giving me a rash again.

“Experience a dark twist on the iconic Pac-Man…” JUST GIVE US PAC-MAN CE 3. THAT’S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO NAMCO. Sincerely, someone who’s gotten in dozens of hours of every previous Pac-Man CE game.

Patapon 1+2 Replay, from Bandai Namco

Ah, this actually looks interesting! But wasn’t Patapon a Sony thing?

You guide a tribe of primitive shapes with big eyes through a rhythm-based battle game. You give orders to your troops by tapping different buttons in the right rhythm, and their attack power comes from your timing. The original Patas-pon were PSP games, and the Switch is kind of like a PSP in its way. I’m still surprised this isn’t on a Sony platform though.

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, from Marvelous

Another Harvest Moon, this one for the Nintendo DS, given a trademark-unencumbered remake on the Switch. Predictably, you play as a young farmer trying to make a place for themself in a new town, growing their suspiciously large vegetables and milking their hippo-like cows. Eventually they can hook up with one of several eligible spouses, giving it the veneer of a dating sim.

It’s a formula that Stardew Valley more-or-less perfected, and Harvest Moon went to the well so many times that I wonder if the features are just permuted in different ways now, but the series has a lot of fans and they’re pretty amiable.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, from Retro Studios and Nintendo, some time in 2025

A lot of people are looking forward to this one, and we finally have some substantive information on it. In this one Samus gains yet another new suit, what is it five by now (how does she pee in those things?), and psychic abilities. Samus is already a super-powerful cyborg wearing a power suit with a half-dozen kinds of deadly beams, can inexplicably roll up into a ball, and can basically fly in some games. Now she can move things WITH HER MIND too? When she inevitably loses her power suit at some point during this game, will she get to keep her mind powers?

The problem with the Metroid series is, the most intersting thing about them is Samus, but the title is “Metroid,” so Metroids have to be in every game. Samus could carry a game that doesn’t have anything to do with Metroids! I mean, the main antagonists are called, just, “space pirates.” They don’t even have a name as a race! There’s been hints that the main series will stop featuring them, although what it’ll be called in the future isn’t clear. Anyway, there’s a creature like a Metroid in this one, so I guess they’ll have at least one last hurrah.

Disney Villains Cursed Café, from Disney Games, out now

My eyes are nearly rolling out of my head. It’s another attempt by Disney to take some trend and wring lucre out of it using their IP. This time it’s a small business sim, where you serve Disney villains “potions.” You’re a “potionista.” Since it’s an excuse to throw together characters from vastly different properties it has some crossover comedy potential. Ursula and Maleficent hang out around with the likes of Captain Hook and Cruella DeVille. You get many different kinds of evil all thrown together as if they were the same thing.

You buy your ingredients from Yzma, from The Emperor’s New Groove, which I think is kind of unfair. While later elaborations upon its milieu make her more of a villain, in the original movie she’s more of an anti-hero? Kuzco, as an uncaring emperor trying to tear down Pasha’s village, was the real villain, and Yzma’s plotting against him was arguably in service of the Inca kingdom.

Gaston is your assistant in the game, which raises the question… how evil are you? Are you planning on taking over the Disney world? Or maybe, Disneyworld?

Witchbrook, from Chucklefish, available Holiday 2025

Chucklefish, a publisher that consciously adopts pixel art as a theme, has a number of successful games, including Starbound and Wargroove, but their best-known game is one they no longer publish: Stardew Valley. Witchbrook looks like it has similarities, although it applies its grid-based aesthetic to a pseudo-Harry Potter setting. But it’s got the romancin’, and the four-player co-op’n. And given how J.K. Rowling has succumbed to Internet Poisoning lately, a game in that kind of universe that isn’t so tainted with anti-trans rhetoric will probably be welcome, if the very idea hasn’t been ruined by its association with her.

The Eternal Life of Goldman, THQ Nordic

The always-breathless narrator explains: “Action, adventure and arcade games await!” Arcades figure not at all in this title though, which is mostly a platformer with a hand-drawn look. “Set off on a fantastical mission to eliminate a mysterious deity in this hand-drawn platforming adventure you’re explore an expansive archipelago where nightmares and wonder collide!” You’re describing a video game, that’s like half of them! Other than the admittedly charming artwork, we just don’t know much about this one.

Gradius Origins, from Konami, August 7

ARGH the narrator pronounces it “gray-dius!” It’s “grah-dius,” I continue to insist! GRAH-DIUS!! I can accept a short A, but never a long one! The included games are the arcade versions of Gradius, Salamander, Life Force, Gradius II, Gradius III (oh frog) and Salamander 2. Shown off is the fact that Gradius III has multiple versions, which is welcome news since the original arcade release is infamous for its length and difficulty. The whole series also has terrific music; hopefully there will be a jukebox mode for players who can’t take G3’s infuriating gameplay.

The collection also includes a new game, Salamander 3! Okay, I have to get this now.

Rift of the NecroDancer, from Brace Yourself Games, out now

A more traditional kind of rhythm game than its roguelike predecessor. They appear to be approaching other indie games with great music for paid DLC packs. A Celeste music pack DLC is available immediately, and notably, Peppino from Pizza Tower was shown off in the trailer as an upcoming expansion. Pizza Tower had some of the best music in all of video gaming, so it’s worth looking forward to.

Tamagotchi Plaza, from Bandai Namco, June 27

Tamagotchi’s logo still has the egg virtual pet device in it. Do they even still make those things? I haven’t seen one in a store in the States in decades. Tamagotchi games are sometimes better than you’d expect, especially from a property that’s now two decades past its best-by date. As always, it looks like a meltdown of the Sanrio characters, and has that kind of feel to it.

Pokemon Legends Z-A, from Nintendo/Creatures/GAME FREAK, late 2025

I guess the various companies involved decided they weren’t getting enough billions of dollars lately. “You’ll begin your adventure by choosing one of three partner Pokémon!” Literally everyone who’s watching this already knows that! (By the way, all the many accent-Es in this piece are brought to you courtesy of the Compose Key.)

“To make it easier for humans and Pokémon to co-exist, a company called Quazartico Inc. is carrying out an urban redevelopment plan!” I wonder who the villains will be, hmm.

“If you’re spotted, they’ll challenge you to battle!” Has anyone in any Pokémon been able to resist accepting a Pokémon fight, even if their last ‘mon is down to Struggling? JUST SAY NO TO TURN-BASED SANITIZED COCKFIGHTING. And it’s still nearly the same battle system as shown way back in Pokémon Red and Blue! Haven’t they exhausted its strategic possibilities three times over by now?

Mega-Evolutions are returning. I guess it shows dedication to something to bring back a previously-used gimmick rather than coining another one.

One of the trainers challenging the protagonist in this one is Zach. Zach opens up saying: “Well, I won’t make it easy for you, because this taxi driver has a taxi dream! I’m going to reach Rank A and abolish all forms of transit in Lumiose—except taxis!” That’s like picking your mayor by whoever has the meanest dog!

Rhythm Heaven Groove, from Nintendo, 2026

This is one I can get excited over. Finally, Rhythm Heaven comes to Switch, and it seems to have a lot of new minigames. Don’t sleep on this one, its many minigames are hilarious.

News: Virtual Game Cards, coming late April

A way to play Switch games on more than one system. Basically, you can de-authorize a card on one system to play it on another system you own. An internet connection is required, but only when authorizing (“loading”) or deauthorizing (“ejecting”).

BUT. It only works on up to two systems without a family Switch Online account, which potentially expands the count by 8 more systems. Local wireless seems to be required, so far-flung families may have problems. And only one game can be lent to a given person at a time, and only for up to two weeks at a time. Seems like a whole lot of catches and exceptions. The system is confirmed to support the Switch 2

Quick previews:

  • High on Life, from Squanch Games, May 6
  • Star Overdrive, from Dear Villagers, April 10
  • The Wandering Village, from Stray Fawn Studio, July 17
  • King of Meat, from Glowmade, sometime in 2025
  • Lou’s Lagoon, from Megabit Publishing
  • Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, from Level5, May 21
  • Saga Frontier 2 Remastered, from Square-Enix, out now
  • Monument Valley 1 & 2, ustwo games, April 15
  • Monument Valley 3 coming Summer
  • Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots, Bandai
  • Marvel Cosmic Invasion, from Dotemu and Tribute, Holiday 2025

And:

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Nintendo, 2026

Oooh, the prestigous last announcement this time goes to a series that hasn’t had a great amount of luck lately? It’s felt like Miis have been on the outs for a while. Tomodachi Life was last seen back on the 3DS, Miitomo on mobile lasted mere months, and Miitopia, while cool, didn’t build a lot of buzz. I’m glad Nintendo is giving both Miis and Tomodachi Life another chance, though it’s disappointing that it’s being announced so far in advance.

Nintendo Today app

Introduced by Shigeru Miyamoto himself, this is a smart device app that functions as a calendar, and presents daily Nintendo news and content. Huh, that sounds a bit familiar… ahem! It’s available for download now, and news on the Switch 2 will be presented through it as well as in the next Nintendo Direct, in five days.

Game Informer Is Back

“We scour the Earth web for indie, retro, and niche gaming news so you don’t have to, drebnar!” – your faithful reporter

There’s lots of things that have disappeared from the world in the 35 years the internet’s been around, and very few of them ever come back. Anyone remember Happy Puppy? Midway Games? GameSetWatch?

One of those dead properties was Game Informer, a long-time video game publication that got its start as an official organ of the used game chain FuncoLand, whose ads used to be ever-present in other game mags. When they merged with Babbages to form GameStop, Game Informer went with them. In recent years you could get issues of Game Informer for free from GameStop stores.

Then, I assume as a cost-cutting measure, GameStop shut it down last year. Despite its status as a store giveaway, the publication was pretty slick, and wasn’t without its fans. And lo, it seems they are back! Not just their website but a print magazine too! The new incarnation of Game Informer is unconnected to GameStop, it having been sold to an outside group. According to the company, its entire staff returned to work on the new publication. It seems too much to ask that it be free again, but maybe it won’t be too expensive.

I will admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of GI while they were owned by GameStop. Its focus was solidly on the AAA market that we mostly steer clear of. But it’s good when people working in media get their jobs back, and we wish the staff of the resurrected company well. They’ve even kept up with their reviews, on their first day back they posted 29 reviews of games released during their absence. (It includes Echoes of Wisdom, but no sign of Balatro.) It may be worth following their Youtube channel, which continues on from their GameStop days.

Here is the announcement from the channel (3 ½ minutes):

BTW, Acclaim is back

So this is happening I guess:

The event that no one was waiting for.

A couple of beloved Western game companies that use to exist but don’t any more include Atari Games and Bally/Midway. One that wasn’t quite so beloved, at least in my well-annotated book, was Acclaim, makers of Vexx, BMX XXX, and other games that, surprisingly, don’t involve the letter X. So naturally that’s the one that’s gotten revived, oh joy.

The Old Acclaim got started on the NES, and lasted until the Playstation 2 years. Mind you, like the current day Atari, there is no continuity of staff between the new and old Acclaims, just ownership of name, logo and possibly properities, so whatever will happen with this new Acclaim is so far unknown. The old Acclaim was noted for soul-killing PR moves like buying ad space on tombstones in order to promote Shadow Man 2. Note to the new company: don’t do things like that.

Just look at that edgy mascot warrior person. Would you be surprised to learn that it plays a lot like Mario 64?

Take a look at Vexx. It tries to be so dark and edgy, yet stars that moppet from the box art above. It’s almost adorable!

BMX XXX made news for having topless female nudity on some platforms, exactly what a bike racing game needed sure.

So the best advice I can give to The New Acclaim is, please, please, please, don’t be like the old Acclaim!

Matthew Green, of Press The Buttons and Power Button, Passes Away at 43

I had been afraid something like this had happened. A friend found an announcement on Twitter, but it’s a cesspool these days and I never go there any more so it had escaped my notice. Here’s the obituary.

He had been ailing for some time, and had struggled with Crohn’s Disease his whole life. Then he was diagnosed with cancer, and fought it bravely. He had finished radiation treatment a couple of months before, and was hopeful for a recovery, but it was not to be.

I never met Matthew in person, but we talked on Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky a bit. He was an early Metafilter member, and had a smaller user number than I do. He was also an early user of the ancient proto-wiki site Everything2.com. He got a job writing for the gaming site Kombo.com, which closed in 2011. He kept a large following though and brought them over to his personal gaming site, Press The Buttons, and ran a long-lived podcast called Power Button. Both of these things are still online, for now at least. The internet is not forever, so enjoy them while they’re up. His About page at PTB has links to much of his writing, but also many dead links, that disappeared when Kombo went dark.

Matthew Green put a link to us in Press The Buttons’ sidebar, which we greatly appreciated. In addition to our own sidebar link, we’ve put up content found through Matt four times, which can be found via the pressthebuttons tag here. Most notable of these was fairly recent, where he helped spread the word about an amazing fan-made recreation of the tracks from the lost Satellaview version of F-Zero. They were recreated by a computer program run on VHS video of a play recording of the tracks, an amazing feat. He interviewed the creator of the hack for PTB. It’s still interesting to read, so again, go see it while you can.

I’m sure there’s many important things left to say, it’s impossible to summarize someone’s life without leaving out a great deal. This will have to do for now.

This is from the “Who is Matthew Green” text from Press The Buttons:

“Matthew Green, 43, is the owner and editor-in-chief of Press The Buttons and co-host of the the Power Button podcast along with his industry pal Blake Grundman. You may have seen Matthew’s work at places like PlayStation LifeStyle, GamesRadar, & The Industry magazine, and publications such as Kotaku and 1UP have asked him for quotes. He was also the the co-host of the short-lived Press The Buttons video show with Robert Alsbrook produced in conjunction with IzonOrlando.com. Previously he was the Assistant Director of Reviews for Kombo from 2004-2010 where he reviewed upcoming video games and worked with the Kombo Review Team to craft better reviews. He also previously served as a panelist for the Kombo Breaker podcast with Brad Hilderbrand, Joey Davidson, and Dan Johnson.

“Matthew has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Information Technology with a minor in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida. By day he is a Technology Coordinator, an enjoyable job involving preparing 3D renderings and 2D site plans of conceptual designs for future construction and some light data mining. These tasks seldom feature creative writing activities, however, so that must be why he spends so much time writing for various projects outside of the office.  If you believe that Matthew’s unique point of view could enhance your gaming-related product or publication, feel free to e-mail him.”

Now it’s too late now to hire him, and we’re all the worse off for it. Farewell Matt! I wish I could have gotten to know you better.

AGDQ Begins Today!

I’m putting aside Sundry Sunday for today, to let you know that the (relatively) long-lived week-long charity speedrunning marathon, AGDQ, or Awesome Games Done Quick, begins TODAY, just a couple of hours after this post goes up! It snuck up on me this year!

It’s one of two GDQ marathons every year. The other SGDQ, usually happens in the middle of the year. I usually do an overview for each marathon of runs that I find interesting, but I feel like that’s more for me than anything you’d find useful? Still, there’s some terrific runs lined up this year. The complete schedule is on their website.

Of course GDQ does other speedrunning events throughout the year, including Frame Fatales and Hotfix, but the ceremony and energy of doing it before a large audience, both in-house and online, builds the hype to mammoth levels. Every year they raise millions of dollars for their chosen charities.

Here’s an informal list of things that I find to be highlights. When I mention times, I’m generally speaking from the context of US Eastern time.

Sunday launches with a run of Pikmin, a game that’s intrinsically suited to speedrunning, and soon after there’s one of Kirby Air Ride City Trial “Any%.” I’m not sure what that means (City Trial games are by their nature time limited anyway), but I presume it’s clearing off the checkboard, a huge list of achievements to aim for. Then there’s a Wind Waker Any% run near the end of Sunday that finishes it in a bit over an hour, that probably takes advantage of the late-game skips that have been found in the treacherous final room before the Ganondorf fight.

Monday leads off with two Alan Wake II DLCs, then Lego The Hobbit, which I’m sure will have much more entertainment value than the trilogy, somehow, of Hobbit movies. Later there’s a PC port of Turok 2, Super Lucky’s Tale, and a selection of retro games including Ninja Gaiden II, Snake Rattle N Roll, Dick Tracy and then a 42 minute Final Fantasy Legend II, which I’m sure will be as bizarre as that game’s storyline, followed by a bit of UFO 50. Approaching 1 PM there’s a more substantial UFO 50 set, followed by Super Meat Boy, Mario Maker for the 3DS, Sonic Origins and a Metroid Prime race. Then as a bonus game (one for which there’s a donation incentive), there’s Breath of the Wild, played with two players on one controller. The day concludes with several substantial runs: Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare DLC, Horizon Forbidden West and Yakuza.

Right after midnight Tuesday morning there’s Shenmue and Beat Slayer, and at 8:43 is VA-11 Hall-A. Later Castevania: Portrait of Ruin, Unicorn Overlord, Ys VIII, Spyro Reignited, then the amazingly difficult F-Zero GX, then Super Mario Bros. “Any% STA.” I’m not sure what STA means in this context. The last run of the night is the recent Silent Hill remake.

Wednesday morning there’s the Batman Forever arcade game and Gauntlet IV for the Genesis, which hews very closely to the arcade original, but in “quest mode,” a special console-only scenario. Other interesting games include two Sonic titles, a bonus inventive of all the romances in Fallout: New Vegas, a Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge TAS showcase and Rocket League workshop maps. Starting late at night and rolling into Thursday is what I presume to be “Awful Block,” since it leads off with the notoriously awful Superman 64.

Thursday has a surprisingly long run of Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, an all-dungeons run of Tears of the Kingdom, and Sega’s “Chunithm Luminous Plus” arcade rhythm game. There’s a number of longer runs in the later half of the day.

Friday has a sequence with Castlevania: Dracula X, Gimmick 2, Froggun Encore and No One Can Stop Mr. Domino, and later on FFVII Rebirth and GTA Vice City. Afterward look out for Nintendo World Championships (not the cart from the 90s, the recent Switch release), Tetris: The Grand Master and a PS1 “Mystery Vs. Tournament.” There’s Kaizo Mario World 3 as a bonus incentive, and a standard Mario World race late at night, and another arcade rhythm game.

Saturday is the last day, starting with Peggle Extreme, Metal Gear Solid, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble and Mega Man 10. Around 10 AM is the traditional super long Pokemon run, this time a race of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. (Are the runners playing different versions?) Then there’s two Elden Ring runs, then one I posted about before, the eagerly awaited Crazy Taxi with live backing band. (Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!)

The last three games are Ocarina of Time with a no logic randomizer, that is, the game mixes things up without regard to how finishable that makes the game, leaving it to the player to use glitches to overcome any blocks, then Echoes of Wisdom Any%, and finally a Super Metroid randomizer race.

A Youtuber Scraped Info From The Entire Steam Catalog

It’s been up for five days now but is at over 300,000 views, the owner of the Youtube account Newbie Indie Game Dev performed a six-day scrape of the Steam catalog back in October, and not only made a video of interesting observations, but even opened a Github project where you can download CSV files of their data. I predict that certain people will find this information very useful, or interesting, or valuable. Maybe you’re one of them?

The video (11 minutes):

itch.io is Down

EDIT: It appears that itch.io is back up now! It should never have been taken down, but that was still fairly quick response, I suppose.

Disappointing internet news. According to their Bluesky feed, itch.io, beloved indie gaming sales and distribution site, host to countless games both free and paid, and constantly linked to from this site and many others, is down, and the reason is Funko Pops.

These! These horrible dead-eyed non-biodegradable landfill-destined things, littering stores across the US! They’re why we can’t have itch.io! (Image from Amazon)

The text of the thing I refuse to call a “skeet”:

@itch.io has been taken down by Funko of “Funko Pop” because they use some trash “AI Powered” Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain

So not only do we have Funko to blame for their DNS record not resolving, but also the relentless scourge of AI! Sure, the world sucks right now. But how does it feel, knowing that if you bought one of these creepy pseudo-cute bits of pop cultural detritus, that you indirectly supported this action?

This is late-breaking news as of this writing, so the situation might change rapidly. Or, it may not. It’s a good reason not to buy Funko items in any case!

Aftermath Looks Back On One Year of Operation

Two whole days in a row of non-Youtube links? Who’d have thought it possible! Shame yesterday was on Nintendo-related things, the other over-frequent subject of our little blogmachine, but I guess you can’t have it all.

Aftermath is composed of just five webugees (original word plz steal) from various other bigcorp contentboxes, and is one of a whole wave of similar creator-owned outfits that also includes Second Wind, 404 Media and Defector. All seem to be doing pretty well… for now… but we’re hoping all the best for all of them, at least until they grow into Kotakus, Escapists or Washingtons Post of their own, and come to oppress an entirely new generation of writer. But that’s the future, and there’s still time to avoid it, at least according to my good friend, the Ghost of Collective Ownership Future.

Aftermath’s principals have an article up describing their experiences, and its variously enlightening and illuminating. Running a small business is a process rife with pitfalls, and when you’re just five people, most working part-time and not able to afford to just pay others to take care of the hard parts, it can be difficult, especially when at your last jobs you could just focus on doing the thing you’re good at, the thing you like doing. Another problem that being only five people creates is fragility. Not intending to jinx them at all, but if one of them were to suddenly pass away, could the remaining four keep the banner held aloft?

But they are doing it. It’s working! And they have plans to expand next year. If you want to follow them and help keep them afloat, they have a trial subscription going where you can read them for one month for just $1. And their monthly rate is just $7 anyway, $10 for commenting privileges and Discord access.

Reading the article, especially the bit about how sites like this tend to slowly bleed subscribers over time just as a fact of their existence, as life happens to their readers in the aggregate, but gain them in lumps as new features are introduced or bursts of publicity occur. It feels like we could all stand to recognize this, and remember these sites need subscribers to survive. Aftermath’s rates are quite reasonable I think, considering that the New York Times charges $25 a month for their output, and as a bonus Aftermath doesn’t even publish frequent transphobic op-eds from right-wing jerks. Huh!

A Note _For_ The Editor

@rodneylives, stalwart editor for the entirety of Set Side B’s existence is in a bad spot- stuck due to Hurricane Helene and suffering a bad car accident that thankfully saw no casualties but likely many other expenses. Myself and the other posters will do our best to fill in the while the editor recovers, but if you have a couple dollars we’d really appreciate it if you sent them his way in what is a really hard time. Here’s how you can do that:

Thanks, and stay safe out there everyone.

Annapurna Interactive’s Entire Staff Resigns

“We scour the Earth web for indie, retro, and niche gaming news so you don’t have to, drebnar!” – your faithful reporter

It’s been a while since I, your favorite amorphous neon-green alien, have presented my whimsical take on Earth gaming news. I’ve mostly settled into an editorial role, consuming, digesting and excreting the work of others in an un-credited and, I assure you, sanitary capacity. This, as opposed to doing so for the news posts of other websites, which was time consuming, space filling, and of dubious interest to readers. I’m a humble amoeboid and can admit when something isn’t working.

But this story, from PC Gamer but no doubt from plenty of others too, is huge! Everyone at popular and prolific publisher Annapurna Interactive walked out! They released tons of games! They published Kentucky Route Zero! They published Stray! And Donut County, Outer Wilds and Wattam! And a lot of other games too!

Annapurna Interactive publishes adorable and somewhat upsetting animal imperiling adventure game Stray.

The surface reason is dismay over abandoned plans by owner Megan Ellison to spin their company off from owners Annapurna Pictures. If there’s some deeper reason, I wouldn’t have any way to speculate. Annapurna Interactive was highly successful, president Nathan Gary was promoted from it to head their movie-making parent, and screenplays based on their games are in production, including an animated movie based on Stray.

I’m sure there’s some deep story there behind literally everyone leaving the company. I’d presume the Pictures parent not wanting to lose access to such a useful source of projects, but the employees feeling betrayed by that? I can only speculate, in a way that gets more irresponsible the further I go, so I’m going to stop. Annapurna Interactive had a good, consistent track record of hits, and didn’t seem to alienate the studios publishing through them. That counts for a lot, from a publisher.

Keita Takahashi’s current project To A T

The walkout leaves a number of games currently in production in a state of 𝙿𝚄𝙱𝙻𝙸𝚂𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙻𝙸𝙼𝙱𝙾, including always-delightful Keita Takahashi’s upcoming To A T. Let’s hope everything works out for all involved.

Andrew Greenberg, RIP

I just got back from DragonCon, and I’m pretty amazed that I didn’t get the connection that the Andrew Greenberg there, who created the classic TTRPG Vampire: The Masquerade, shared a name with Andrew Greenberg, co-creator of Wizardry. And how much of a coincidence it is that the later Greenberg passed away during DragonCon this year, while the former one was there and presenting panels.

Of course this post is about the Wizardry Greenberg. His passing was reported by the other major Wizardry creator, Robert Woodhead, on his Facebook page. It is nice that Digital Eclipse’s wonderful remake of Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord made it out while he was still alive. The name of the evil wizard in that game, Werdna, is Andrew spelled backwards. (Spelling names backwards was a popular way to name fantasy characters in early CRPGs. Trebor, the Mad Overlord himself, is Robert, as in Robert Woodhead, reversed, and Yendor from Rogue is Rodney backwards.)

Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead. Image from Woodhead’s Facebook page

Youtube channel Tea Leaves has an obit video (6 minutes) that fills in some of the context:

Tombstones: Romhacking.net Calls It Quits, Game Informer Shuts Down

First:

It’s a grievous blow to the game editing community, but Nightcrawler, the maintainer of the 19-year-old hack repository and community site romhacking.net, is shutting its doors. The reasons why are the top news item on the site, probably the last new news item that will ever be posted there.

romhacking.net as it looked August 2, 2024, R.I.P.

They mention several reasons, but say a collection of users who had offered to take up the site for disingenuous reasons. The details were not mentioned, but they mentioned by way of comparison what happened to emulator author Near, creator of higan, and that can be easily taken as a bad sign.

However, Gideon Zhi on Bluesky offers a different take, that suggests comparison to Near is greatly inappropriate, and that Nightcrawler was severely burnt out and refused offers to help. I don’t know which is more accurate, but the details are offered suggest there may be something to his version of events. Gideon Zhi isn’t one, I think, to cover something like that up. Ah well, drama.

Maintaining a hugely popular website for 19 years is a huge drain on your time, energy and finances. It’s possible that ultimately Nightcrawler needed, or even just wanted, to retire, and that’s okay.

I’ve made frequent use of romhacking.net over the years, both in researching two romhack ebooks and the Romhack Thursday feature on this site. While what the maintainer of romhacking.net says in their news post, that there isn’t as much of a need of a centralized site for collecting and presenting romhacks as there was back in 2005, I still found their site extremely useful, and I think it served a vital role. I will greatly miss it, but I understand their wishing to move on. They took the step of uploading the whole site contents to the Internet Archive, which is a forward-thinking move that I applaud.

Will they ever return to updating the site? Anything is possible, but I expect not. Will another site arise to take its place? Who knows, there’s definitely demand for it. I wish Nightcrawler well in any event, and thank them for their service.

–

Second:

Kotaku reports that Game Informer, the oldest game magazine still in print in the US (dating back to 1991) is shutting down. It was originally a production of the classic game retailer FuncoLand, who would advertise, in turn, in classic 90s gaming magazines, and the publication changed ownership to GameStop when they bought FuncoLand out in 2000.

Game Informer’s site, as it looked August 2, 2024, R.I.P.

Since then, GameStop has kept the magazine going as a house publication, at times distributing issues for free to customers. It seems the announcement was sudden, with management sending out a tweet about the publication’s closure while staff was being notified of the ending of their positions.

There are older game magazines in Japan, of course, and US game magazines lately have had things pretty tough with competition from the internet. It’s surprising that they’ve managed to keep going for this long.