PeezMachine

I have an MSI Clutch GM30 and it's dead simple and I love it. Tower on left, tiny tray-mounted mousepad on the right, so the cord is always hanging over the edge, but that bad boy stay put because there's a little sheath on the cord right there, almost like someone at MSI got sick of cords dragging their mice away.

@thatpinguino: That was the card that got me within inches of beating Ante 11. It was paired up with cheap rerolls that gave me +2 mult each, and free planet cards.

4X was a term coined for the original Master of Orion. MoO3 was billed as the world's first "5X" game, with the fifth X being "eXperience," which is kind of true -- MoO3 isn't a game, it's an experience (I seem to recall Penny Arcade at one point describing it as "not a game, but an interface for managing a galactic empire"). And then, of course, there's the victory condition where you literally collect 5 Xs.

Playing MoO3 back in the day forever changed my design sensibilities, especially with regards to 4X games. It's a game that completely ignores how exhausting it is to make any sort of informed decision, and to this day, when I play a 4X game, I'm looking for places where a bunch of little decisions could be condensed into fewer, more impactful choices. MoO3 is a like an action figure with waaaaay too many points of articulation, which means it often gets contorted into grotesque, inhuman forms.

"You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!"

"Show, don't tell" just means "don't do ^^this^^."

Also, congrats on yet another poll where I have no earthly clue which positions the choices represent.

Oh good, I was worried that when I saw S+B on the EGS "Top Upcoming Wishlisted" list (release date TBD) that our long-running joke would be coming to an end.

I want an earnings call. I want to know how much money has been spent making this game, and I really want to know where the PvP-infested waters of Skull and Bones fit into today's oversaturated snack market.

Only WHO plays free games? You chose "you" referring to me. The correct answer is... you.

Frill though I've had a good time with EGS free games. I'm more likely to drop them immediately if they aren't bangers.

I've played a number of Vampire Survivor knock-offs, some good and some bad, but none of them captures the audiovisual hellscape of VS -- the constant thud and swish of weapons going to work and the ring-a-ding-ding of a whole bunch of XP orbs cashing in, which I think is as close as I get to experiencing ASMR outside of Corin Tucker hitting a high note. I'm glad this game exists, and I'm glad it's great.

The raw number was bad, but these things happen. Then I saw that it represented an entire SIXTH of the company and I broke my jaw on the floor.

@bigsocrates: We're on the other side of the Unity Hubbert's Peak, which probably lines up with the 2020 IPO. The ascent you mentioned was very real, and was due to the fact that the engine matured with better features, tech, and documentation. And of course there was the Asset Store, and while it contributed to Unity's reputation as the engine of choose for no-effort shovelware, it also did gangbusters, had actual utility, and lit a fire under Epic to follow suit (boot up the Unreal launcher and you will see that oh yeah, they definitely did).

And then a few years ago, Unity the engine took a backseat to Unity the Financial Asset and Holding Company. Hell, even the additions to the engine itself became more and more focused on marketing and monetization. This isn't a company that makes and sells a product anymore; its business is now to make itself look as good as possible to investors (by demonstrating its potential for landlording in an endless stream of captive dollars) and get sold at a massive premium. The past few years at Unity have been comically top-heavy -- like look we all know that execs make decisions that benefit their portfolio over the company everywhere, but at least try to hide it a little.

Unity is my Lock of the Week for sure, but I think Embracer still has a plenty of gas in the tank to make a late-year push for runner-up in terms of sheer potential bodycount.