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Nov 7, 2022

Jeremy Peel PSA: I've decided to return to full-time freelance for the foreseeable. I'm booked up til Christmas, but if you've ever wanted to work with me, please do get in touch. I'm particularly interested in doing more mock reviews and consultancy.

How Divinity: Original Sin put the magic back into spellcasting

Personally, I'm really fond of the way Divinity handles magic - rendering it properly volatile and experimental.

pcgamesn.com

Mana has made magic boring. At some point in the recent history of RPGs, spells became something you spooned out of a generic pool over the course of a battle - powerful ranged attacks you fired off...

Celebrate magical games of witchcraft and wizardry with Magic Week on RPS

This is a cool and positive thing:

@rockpapershot

is running a Magic Week, celebrating wizard-type games with a particular focus on those made by trans developers.

rockpapershotgun.com

For the next two weeks, RPS is having a Magic Week! We're highlighting some great games that feature magic, or are made by trans devs, or both!

I also don't really think a great bottle episode is a dead end either: it deepens your connection to the world and characters in a way that informs your response to future stories where things are moving faster. It's an emotional well to draw from later.

A plot isn't driven forward for its own sake, or at least it shouldn't be. It's pushed in the direction of exactly the kind of tension, resonance and catharsis that third episode was made up of. So if a writer can find those things by exploring a cul de sac, they're right to.

Seen a couple of times, this idea that The Last of Us' Long, Long Time was a diversion that didn't drive the show forward. And I have to ask: if a diversion delivers a hugely satisfying journey and emotional payoff, isn't that what we're watching for?

What Will It Take to Trust M. Night Shyamalan?

The New York Times

@nytimes

Feb 5

M. Night Shyamalan, whose latest film is “Knock at the Cabin,” has been working to regain audience faith — one B-movie at a time.

nytimes.com

The director, whose latest is “Knock at the Cabin,” has been working to regain audience faith, one B-movie at a time.

127

The Spaceshipper

@TheSpaceshipper

Jett: The Far Shore + Given time (2023) “There’s a lot of parallels between the story of Jett and the making of Jett, I’ll say. It took 1,000 years, that’s true in terms of making the trip to The Far Shore. It’s a bunch of good people struggling against adversity.”

Bit scared by the idea of a Your Honor season two. The emotional equivalent of ‘let’s check in five years later with the Modern Warfare characters who got blown up by the nuke, see how they’re getting on’.

Feb 4

Enjoyed that. Dave Bautista has now achieved full Green-Mile-era Michael Clarke Duncan - huge guy filled to the top with feelings that spill out of his enormous, empathetic face.

Going to see the new Shyamalan today. It’s like seeing a Jordan Peele except you don’t have to suffer overwrought opinions from every angle on the internet afterwards. Bliss.

These witch fights are so far off the chain. Doom Eternal type nonsense.

I've misplaced the USB hard drive I ordinarily use to get images off the PlayStation, so please excuse me while I tweet a bunch of screens from Dishonored: Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches. I think you'll probably like them. For the accompanying words, read Edge magazine.

Just a cool 47,681 people ahead of me in the Beyoncé ticket queue. Being a pop fan is hard. Surely this many people can't all like music designed to appeal to the widest possible audience?

*long, heavy exhale*

Quote Tweet

VGC

@VGC_News

EA has reportedly cancelled a single-player game codenamed Titanfall Legends, which was in development at Respawn vgc.news/news/ea-has-re

A new expansion sees Jett become the soaring sci-fi open world it was meant to be

Feb 2

May have overdone it with the adjectives on this tweet, but take it as an indication of passion.

Pleased to say that

is now on Steam and has, with the addition of its new expansion, flourished into an essential and deeply experimental open world. If you’re at all interested in gaming’s potential to tell truly original sci-fi stories, read on.

rockpapershotgun.com

Jett: The Far Shore's devs explain how new open-world endgame DLC Given Time was actually how Jett started out, and why its taken a while to get back there.

The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

@BackPagePod

Feb 2

It's February! Here's what we're recording: What We've Been Playing (Feb 3rd) A Nintendo mag guest episode (Feb 10th) XL Episode: 50 Things That Make Us Go 'Ooh Yeah!' In Games (Feb 13th) The Last of Us Revisited (Feb 17th) PC Gaming Classics: X-Com: UFO Defense (Feb 20th)...

A day - whole week, really - where I've written little to be published but sent out so many promising feelers for features that will make me feel happy and fulfilled once I finally get to write them up. An investment in Future Jeremy.

Spirited Thief - Announcement Trailer

Oh hey, this looks cool. Little bit Invisible Inc, but drawing on a whole different history of console aesthetics.

youtube.com

Spirited Thief is a tactical stealth game with a quirk: take your time to scout and plan your heist, then break in to steal pricey gems under increasing pres...

Thief developer Randy Smith says "immersion is totally incompatible with ego"

Of course in the long term, competition raises quality and keeps fees down. And it gives creative people options - for better pay, better projects, to make better art. It's protection against stagnation in worker conditions and, frankly, protection against crap telly and games.

One thing that concerns me about streaming services is that, for users, a monopoly feels most desirable. It puts everything in one place, making it more convenient and affordable in the short term. So we end up rooting for something that will ultimately hurt us.

“Looking Glass was one of the very few outliers who were like, ‘Yes, we are making a first-person game, but there’s no guns’. And we paid for it.”

rockpapershotgun.com

Veteran of Looking Glass studios, and lead on Thief: Deadly Shadows, Randy Smith talks about ego, and why Dishonored was the first time he played a Thief game

We played SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake underwater on a...

Never let it be said that sponsored content can't be art. Top tier

@TrincaJamie

and co.

youtube.com

Is it possible to play a game totally underwater? Well, Jim and Connor have been assigned a crucial task to prove the feat possible with the help of SpongeBo...

Waves All Day

@wavesallday_

Jan 31

Had a great chat with Jeremy Peel of RockPaperShotgun about Looking Glass, immersion, and my new game, among other things.

Quote Tweet

Jan 30

Particularly proud of this one. Randy was so generous with his time and I think it took us somewhere special. twitter.com/rockpapershot/…

Jan 31

Wait, the studio Dontnod is now officially called Don’t Nod? I didn’t think my headcanon pronunciation was actually correct.

Jan 30

Particularly proud of this one. Randy was so generous with his time and I think it took us somewhere special.

Quote Tweet

Rock Paper Shotgun

@rockpapershot

Jan 30

Thief veteran developer Randy Smith tells us "immersion is totally incompatible with ego", and thatn Dishonored was the first time he played a Thief game. Read our lovely interview here: rockpapershotgun.com/thief-develope

Jan 29

What I miss about the Xbox 360 is that the ‘controller disconnected’ sound is the same as the ‘achievement unlocked’ sound, so you get a little dose of satisfaction for running out of battery.

Jan 29

The same actor, Mike Shapiro, voiced both Barney and the G-Man. Now that’s range.

Jan 27

Anyone know where (if?) you can watch Rian Johnson's Poker Face in the UK?

Jan 27

Dunno, but I feel like you're telling me there's a right answer. Subliminally.

Four songs deep and

hasn’t put a foot wrong so far.

I’m a millennial so I’m an album guy when it comes to music, but I also love that modern Spotify release phase where a single slowly becomes an EP and then an LP, growing song by song. Like watching an athlete take their run up.

Perhaps it's also the year where I get brave enough to independently fund some of my work myself? Who knows. TBD.

2023 is the year where I've had parts of my writing funded by Patreons and Kickstarters without having been a part of any campaign myself. Just a natural and welcome part of the tapestry of published games journalism.