Feel free to make fanart, podfics, and derivative works of mine, as long as a heads-up & credit is given. I always appreciate the creativity of this community, without the use of AI.
Feel free to make fanart, podfics, and derivative works of mine, as long as a heads-up & credit is given. I always appreciate the creativity of this community. See my full use statement here.
Felassan finds himself investigating a murder with a ragtag group of three outcast Dalish, uncovering an ancient ruin hidden in plain sight and the ugly secret trapped at its heart. Illustrated by Adurna-0 with additional commissioned art.
What started as a creative break / touching grass internet break has been a great success in most regards, I’ve had a lot of fun offline and have been ingesting a lot of great art and books and movies and time with friends and such, but hand in hand with that, Lu has been having a very hard time.
He’s doing okay enough, but there have been some scary ups and downs. We have a vet visit at the end of the month with a new hopefully better vet, and that will begin the journey of seeing what’s up. If it’s everything I think it will be, I’m looking at 10k in vet bills, as a conservative estimate, for 2026. :’) Pretty stressed.
Overall we’re doing okay for now. The latest things seem to have settled and he’s eating again, still has all his energy and sense of mischief and humor.
So, if you’re not in a techbro-adjacent world you might not know this, but a lot of gamer bros have finally started rebelling against AI. Because they were all waiting for Black Friday sales to get new PC parts, but AI companies are buying up all the PC parts, so they all logged in on Black Friday looking for deals and found everything three times as expensive as it was a few months ago. And I mean everything. It’s not just GPUs this time like it was with the crypto miners, it’s RAM and SSDs and even fucking HDDs.
You tell a gamer bro he can’t get a 1TB SSD for less than 200 smackeroos and he’ll be against anything you tell him is to blame.
There’s also a large migration of gamers to Linux, which came as a surprise to me when I first learned it because the conventional wisdom for so long had been that you can’t game on Linux at all. The release of the Steam Deck changed that narrative overnight, since it runs on a custom Linux distro that Valve made because they don’t want to deal with Microsoft’s bullshit either. The vast majority of PC games now run just fine on Linux, and the only ones that don’t are ones that use a specific form of anti-cheat software (mostly online competetive games, like League of Legends). Even that will probably change in the future, since the migration to Linux will incentivize game companies to do their anti-cheat differently.
Most of the linux distros that people are moving to have no AI features and no intention of including them. And, of course, even if some develop them in the future, the linux community can always be counted on to provide a no-AI alternative. They are extremely protective of their disc space, after all. So there is a real coalition building here, in a population that has a lot of cash to use to lean on the powers that be. I think we have some reason to be optimistic.
i think overall, this year, short games have been my saving grace. not every game ill mention has “AN AMAZING STORY THAT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL THINGS” as a draw (though most of them do), but all of them will be a fun experience you can tell your grandchildren about
everyone knows of the devil. and if you dont, the first episode is free on steam. its like if ace attorney had De Killer as an attorney its great. AND ep 2 will be out this month!!! play it before it becomes the next big thing
this is one of my favorite games this year. a short, lovely experience. youre a little dwarf guy trying to solve some spooky old lady’s ghost problem. HIGHLY recommend!!!
i had a fun time with this one. what if coin flipping was an esport? seeing your score go up is so nerve wracking. or down. maybe you’ll gain 300.000.000 points. maybe you’ll lose 600.000.000. who’s to say?
i dont play enough puzzle games but im slowly realizing i should play them more. this one is about the roottrees, whose main family all perished in a crash. your job is to reconstruct their family tree, to figure out who the inheritence should fall to. to do that, you have to look over the internet, books, old newspapers, and various family pictures. and also. the DRAMA in this family is BONKERS
surprise itchio game! this one was interesting. toxic lesbians living on an island that has to be evacuated for safety reasons. some want to stay, some leave. how important is a home? also my god this game looks so good. i LOVE how they incorporate different mediums in this!!!!
ok you HAVE to read the content warnings in this one. and its a kinetic novel so is it really a game (YEAGH). nora’s job has always been to deliver lave to a certain church, so the god living inside his belly can finally be born. four rituals remain. this story is sweet, horrible, heartbreaking, gory, sexy, and unsettling all at once. quite honestly i finished it and felt very inspired!!!!!
my goty and im not even kidding. by the creator of QWOP (remember QWOP?). you control Nate, an “unemployed failson” who gets isekai’d into another world, and make him explore. to walk, you have to press a shoulder button (to raise your leg), move the joystick (to decide where your foot will fall), and release the shoulder button (to put your foot down). this is how you walk. yes its great. yes there’s mud everywhere. yes you will fall. this is a looney tunes game.
also you will start the game hating nate but i ended up liking him quite a bit by the end… its a wonderful game that deconstructs other games (especially tutorials) and is also about toxic masculinity. yes i promise. please play it its so so so fun and funny PLAY IT PLEASE I NEED EVERYONE TO PLAY IT AND SLIP ON A BANANA AND FALL DOWN THE NEARBY CLIFF AND LOSE ALL THEIR PROGRESS
You don’t have to force yourself to bounce back so quickly. I read something recently that said “when you come in from a rainstorm, you don’t expect yourself to be dry and warm right away”, and it really resonated with me. It’s okay to take time to dry off and warm up. Take the time you need to process what happened to you.
I know people aren’t always who we want them to be. I know he wasn’t a good friend, so why does it hurt so much?
Available on Steam, PS5, and Xbox. PSA: It’s gory, but give it a chance, please!!!!
Look at the delicious, delicious art style (those highlights, the neon, the expressiveness, the hot demons) and you know why I picked up the demo for Possessor(s). Then take a gander at the description of “platformer” “metroidvania” and anyone who knows me understands why I was immediately hooked. I love a platformer. I love a metroidvania. I love punishment. I love hot demons.
But you know what I love even more than that? Platonic frenemies who help each other heal and shit talk each other’s exes and believe in each other 110% and encourage each other to be better. And that’s what you get with the beautiful, fun story in this game.
The main character, Luca, is caught in the nuclear fallout of demons being unleashed on her world. She’s a savvy high schooler, but blind to the suffering that fuels the empire - her home - that’s now crumbling around her. She makes a deal with a mortally wounded demon, Rhem, and allows him residence in her head in exchange for healing her own doomed corpse - all in order to exact revenge, and find the ones they love. Maybe not in that order.
The relationship between Rhem and Luca is really endearing. He’s grumpy, she’s spicy and doesn’t take any guff, and they both eventually get under each other’s shells and pry open the soft, painful bits. Luca is young and naive; Rhem is impossibly ancient and needs her to open her eyes. But of course, Rhem has something to learn about hope from her, in return. It doesn’t feel cheesy. It doesn’t feel hamfisted. It doesn’t feel cheap. I spent 22 hours with these two and I really believed their partnership-turned-friendship as it grew, to both of their surprises.
The world building was super fun to dig through, environmentally and in the conversations and data logs left behind by the scientists who ran this town and set the plot in motion. I think that the metaphor at the heart of the plot is actually done well, and I’ve been reading a lot of books where the metaphors are not done well, so that was refreshing. And it’s wishful, without being naive, in my opinion; we can’t mind-meld with our own people here on earth, but having empathy and an open mind for people and experiences foreign to you…. It’s a lesson I never really tire of seeing in media, especially when it’s done well and takes me on a fun journey to boot.
Because let me tell you, I had a blast.
GRAPPLING HOOK. POGO. JUGGLING ENEMIES IN THE AIR WITH A KNIFE. Zipping and zapping, puzzling through difficult terrain, nothing feels as satisfying to me as beating that boss who was once a wall I was stuck on - or coming up with a clever use of the physics and mechanics to get on a hard-to-reach ledge, or finding a secret door. These are the simple pleasures of a metroidvaniaplatformer and I think Possessor(s) serves it up in a beautiful, tasty package.
It was well worth the money, and well worth my time. I wish it was longer but also I don’t - I feel like the story was told exactly in the amount of time it needed to be told. I just don’t want to stop playing. And I don’t want to say goodbye to Rhem and Luca.
After finishing Hollow Knight the first time, I wished I could wipe my memory and play it again blind. Not just for the story, but for the joy of playing that kind of difficult game without knowing what’s coming, without knowing the puzzle solutions already. I feel the same way for Possessor(s) - I’m not saying it’s Hollow Knight, but I am saying it’s hella fuckin fun.
Please give Possessor(s) a try, or watch a playthrough with a streamer!
I know people aren’t always who we want them to be. I know he wasn’t a good friend, so why does it hurt so much?
Available on Steam, PS5, and Xbox. PSA: It’s gory, but give it a chance, please!!!!
Look at the delicious, delicious art style (those highlights, the neon, the expressiveness, the hot demons) and you know why I picked up the demo for Possessor(s). Then take a gander at the description of “platformer” “metroidvania” and anyone who knows me understands why I was immediately hooked. I love a platformer. I love a metroidvania. I love punishment. I love hot demons.
But you know what I love even more than that? Platonic frenemies who help each other heal and shit talk each other’s exes and believe in each other 110% and encourage each other to be better. And that’s what you get with the beautiful, fun story in this game.
The main character, Luca, is caught in the nuclear fallout of demons being unleashed on her world. She’s a savvy high schooler, but blind to the suffering that fuels the empire - her home - that’s now crumbling around her. She makes a deal with a mortally wounded demon, Rhem, and allows him residence in her head in exchange for healing her own doomed corpse - all in order to exact revenge, and find the ones they love. Maybe not in that order.
The relationship between Rhem and Luca is really endearing. He’s grumpy, she’s spicy and doesn’t take any guff, and they both eventually get under each other’s shells and pry open the soft, painful bits. Luca is young and naive; Rhem is impossibly ancient and needs her to open her eyes. But of course, Rhem has something to learn about hope from her, in return. It doesn’t feel cheesy. It doesn’t feel hamfisted. It doesn’t feel cheap. I spent 22 hours with these two and I really believed their partnership-turned-friendship as it grew, to both of their surprises.
The world building was super fun to dig through, environmentally and in the conversations and data logs left behind by the scientists who ran this town and set the plot in motion. I think that the metaphor at the heart of the plot is actually done well, and I’ve been reading a lot of books where the metaphors are not done well, so that was refreshing. And it’s wishful, without being naive, in my opinion; we can’t mind-meld with our own people here on earth, but having empathy and an open mind for people and experiences foreign to you…. It’s a lesson I never really tire of seeing in media, especially when it’s done well and takes me on a fun journey to boot.
Because let me tell you, I had a blast.
GRAPPLING HOOK. POGO. JUGGLING ENEMIES IN THE AIR WITH A KNIFE. Zipping and zapping, puzzling through difficult terrain, nothing feels as satisfying to me as beating that boss who was once a wall I was stuck on - or coming up with a clever use of the physics and mechanics to get on a hard-to-reach ledge, or finding a secret door. These are the simple pleasures of a metroidvaniaplatformer and I think Possessor(s) serves it up in a beautiful, tasty package.
It was well worth the money, and well worth my time. I wish it was longer but also I don’t - I feel like the story was told exactly in the amount of time it needed to be told. I just don’t want to stop playing. And I don’t want to say goodbye to Rhem and Luca.
After finishing Hollow Knight the first time, I wished I could wipe my memory and play it again blind. Not just for the story, but for the joy of playing that kind of difficult game without knowing what’s coming, without knowing the puzzle solutions already. I feel the same way for Possessor(s) - I’m not saying it’s Hollow Knight, but I am saying it’s hella fuckin fun.
Please give Possessor(s) a try, or watch a playthrough with a streamer!