Myst, the solitary, quiet adventure game that was packed with so many PCs in the 90s, is a divisive game. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of the series. I was one of those people who bought The Book of Atrus in hardcover. I even played through the sequel, Riven, as a kid, though I can’t say I did it without some help. When I saw that a spiritual successor to this series was put up on Kickstarter, I backed, so that I would be sure to have the game when it released.

I hate to boast, but I have yet to back a total dud on Kickstarter.

Affordable Space Adventures got an honourable mention in my (ridiculously long) Games of 2015 list solely because of what I played with Joel for this episode of Side by Side. Since then I’ve played it through to completion with my girlfriend and a friend, and I can tell you now that it will be on my Games of 2016 list too, but not as an honourable mention this time.

Here’s how this affordable spaceship went down.

Rooting around in a coffee table basket, looking for a notepad, I unearthed this list. I’d forgotten having written it down a little over a month ago. Upon seeing it I remembered, ‘oh, this is that list I wrote down of my 17 favourite PS4 games.’

So…That’s what this is, then.

(Sorry, early adopters. There are no PS VR games here.)

This year I took a trip to PAX West, in Seattle, for a little talk among devs, a little R&R, and a little cosplay. I didn’t travel on a press badge, but I did get a few press invitations that nonetheless intrigued me. The one that interested me the most was an invitation to see a preview of the new Torment game, Tides of Numenera.

Let’s get the disclosures out of the way first: I’m a backer of the game’s Kickstarter campaign, Tap-Repeatedly’s Steerpike was previously involved with the game, and  I personally know some people involved with the game, including writer Colin McComb, who I worked with at a previous job! I’m also gonna disclose that one of the reasons I went for the interview was just to catch up with Colin and see what the heck he’d been working on. What I saw of the game was really cool… and you can read about that more below!

November of 2016 seemed a long way off when I kicked in my $50. Now, alas, it seems like we’ll have to wait another stretch after that before we get our hands on Ice-Pick Lodge’s anticipated Pathologic remake. The new target release is Fall 2017. That delay, while disappointing, isn’t much of a surprise.

Are you interested in reading about No Man’s Sky? The last few hundred words of this deluge might be related to that subject! Maybe.

DOOM is good, to general incredulity.

The whole world is loudly, vocally, relentlessly amazed. DOOM is good! Unbelievement! Dumbfoundery! Getouttaheah!

It occurs to me how cruel and backhanded this startled praise must feel to the developers. I mean think about it: You did your job well. Everyone is astonished. What a shitty compliment.

Marketing materials try to convince you that Zero Time Dilemma, being the first Steam release in the series, is a perfectly fine introduction to the series if you missed the first two games. I would disagree. …  I guess another way to put it is that my opinions about this game are… complex.

…a streamlined version of clunky, older game mechanics — without feeling “dumbed down” or “casual.” Bastard Bonds is simply more elegant than its predecessors and influences.

Hi Tappers, just a heads-up! As the east coast travelling correspondent, I’m going to be visiting the Too Many Games conference in Philadelphia tomorrow.

This isn’t really travel for me. I live in the area, so it’s really just a quick skip over to the Oaks Convention Center to visit the event. I’ve done this trip before and it’s a lot of fun. The focus is on vendors and there are some great concerts (last year, I saw an amazing set by Bit Brigade). But what I like to do the most at any event like this is check out all the local indie games! There’s a lot to say about the Philadelphia indie game scene lately, and I want to get a good cross section of it and tell some stories about our local work.

Too Many Games starts… today! at 2 PM. If you want to see me, look me up tomorrow. I’ll be wearing Portal swag.