Just a bunch of little things today. Why, it almost resembles a real blog. Scandalous!

Steam Sales

So this is what I've been mostly doing all weekend and the days after the weekend, which I guess would be the weekstart. I don't mind admitting I've bought several of the items on my wishlist as they appear in the Daily Deals. Because why wouldn't I mind admitting that? I guess I should specify that what's actually been swallowing my time are the meta-achievements for free prize tickets. Apparently Steam doesn't have a skeeball simulator it can use. Put down your pirated Tower Defense Generator software and get on it, Indie developers. Anyway, here's what tickets I got so far and what advice I can condescendingly offer those still struggling:

1. Join that one group. - I guess you just join that one group. Good luck?
2. Link profile to Facebook. - To get this ticket you may need: A Facebook profile.
3. Post on a friend's profile. - Yeah, you tell that random duder you met on the internet who's boss.

Okay, I'm cutting this sorry exercise short. Bottom line is that a lot of them are really easy to get, so go get. Don't buy any games you don't want unless you think a horribly derivative $15 Tower Defense game is worth a pair of goddamn sunglasses. Still being condescending, sorry. Moving on.

Community Starlet? Moi?

Well that title suddenly got a whole lot less awe-inspiring.

Playing "Shadows of the Damned"

Pfffft, boner.

New Achievement System?

Well look at this guy, putting on designer airs. So this is an idea, or sequence of ideas, about a new and improved achievement system for a hypothetical future games console or some such piece of electronics. Maybe toasters? We don't know what the future holds. Essentially, this system simplifies achievements for the convenience of developers working on games (who could probably do well to just concentrate on the games themselves) while also making them more representative of the gamers that earn them.

As always, the name was the hardest part. Apparently I have a reputation with horrible names now. I was originally going to call these Mentokens, but that sounded a bit... Cho-Aniki. Then I thought Achievementos, but then I realized I should probably get out of the habit of creating terrible portmanteaus with my own name in them. So instead they're Lucky Charms. That's not going to get me into any legal issues down the road, probably. Here's how it goes down:

Each game gets 50 Charms to give away, not including the special three (see below). The developers choose which of the following three categories those 50 go into: Either focus on one, or spread them out across all three - this would obviously depend on the game they're making. The categories are, with randomly chosen icons representing them:

Hourglass - ENDURANCE

Endurance Charms are given to players that fulfill challenges that require a lot of time (such as time-trials or playing the game X hours) or a lot of repetitive work (killing X enemies, use a gun X times etc.) Each task rewards a number of Endurance Charms based on difficulty, or in this case zero difficulty and a lot of time spent. I know developers make these horrible achievements on purpose, so here's a category for them all to live in.

Bag of Gold - COLLECTIBLES

Collectible Charms are given to players who fulfill scavenger hunts or find all items in a level or sandbox-type environ. They reward careful exploration and, once again, dole out more Charms based on the difficulty of the task (or the number of stuff found).

Diamond - SKILL

Skill Charms are given to players who fulfill difficulty-based challenges, such as performing a trick shot or climbing the tallest structure or completing stunts. They reward player skill, which should be self-evident by the name. Knew I called it that for a reason.

Heart - GAME BEATEN

This is a single (per game) Charm given to players who beat the game on any difficulty with any ending. It simply states that the player has completed a runthrough of this game. Anyone viewing your Charm collection can see how many of these you have and know instantly how many games (and what games) you've bothered to beat.

Rainbow - GAME MASTERED

This is basically the Platinum Trophy equivalent, but it doesn't require the player achieve all the other Charms first. It's rewarded for any player that has:

• Reached 100% Completion on the in-game progress indicator.
• Beaten the hardest difficulty mode.
• Defeated a very (or most) difficult challenge. (In case the first two don't apply, e.g. sports games)

Like the Heart Charms, there's only one per game and players can use them to instantly tell which games they've mastered.

??? - UNIQUE

This is a single Charm that's unique for each game, and shaped to be something befitting for the game it comes from. It can be awarded for anything (developers' discretion, and dependent on the game) and is considered the game's "souvenir". Like the Heart and Rainbow, it's considered a prestigious award and worth pursuing to make your profile all the more varied.

As gamers unlock these Charms and they start piling up on their public profile pages, other gamers (and advertisers? dun dun dun) can see what kind of games appeal to them based on the category of Charms they most favor. A predominantly Skill Charm gamer is one that relishes arcade-style challenges and pushing their reflexes and hand-eye-coordination, predominant Collectible gamers are those who enjoy taking their time and exploring, and the Endurance gamer is a very dedicated crazy person that could be recruited into your army of insane zealots and/or (or?) MMO guild. With this system achievements are no longer an arbitrary number of points or shiny things, but more like little scout badges that tell people where your strengths and inclinations lie. Plus I think it'd be handy to just have a way to tell if you've beaten a game or not without hunting for some eccentrically-named "beat game" achievement.