Lighthouse Is A Short And Atmospheric Adventure Where You Follow Environmental Clues To Help Track Down

Tactical Crisis is essentially Time Crisis meets turn-based tactics. Character movement is turn-based then it switches to Time Crisis-esque shooting galleries during combat!

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Stone House Orphanage is a short and shocking retro styled horror game where you interrogate a freaky nun about missing orphans.

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Agony of a Dying MMO is a haunting horror game set within a doomed MMO that’s about to be shut down!

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Today marks the first day of Pride 2020.

It also marks the seventh day of protests held in honor of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. It’s been 634 days since Botham Jean was murdered by a police officer, 233 days since Atatiana Jefferson was fatally shot by a police officer, 2,123 days since Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer, and 2,146 days since Eric Garner was choked to death by a police officer. 

It has been five days since Tony McDade, a Black trans man from Florida, was shot and killed by a police officer.  

At the time of this post, it has been almost 19 hours since David McAtee was shot and killed by the authorities. 

This week has served as a stark reminder that those who have power in this country wield it recklessly and violently against Black people, non-Black POC, and trans people. For some, the power is found in their badge. In others, it’s their skin tone, their socio-economic status, their cisgender privileges, or any other number of privileges one can have. In 2018, with at least 26 trans people who were murdered, all but one was a trans woman, and all but one was a person of color. According to data collected by Human Rights Campaign, this pattern is all too common. It should also be noted that the number of trans people who are murdered is grossly underreported, with many families and newspapers often misgendering those who can no longer speak up for themselves. 

On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall riots began as a response to the constant police raids of nightlife establishments frequented by the LGBTQIA+ community. That night sparked a revolution, with many eye-witnesses crediting Black and Latinx trans women for being brave enough to ignite what would become one of the most pivotal nights in LGBTQIA+ history. Without Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, there would have been no uprising. Without them, there would be no Pride. 

At this moment, it would be tone-deaf and insensitive to commemorate Pride in the same celebratory fashion we usually do. Instead, we’re asking you to make the commitment to better the lives of the oppressed. Do the work to become actively anti-racist if you are not Black. Spread the word that Black lives matter. Spread the word that trans people deserve to feel safe wherever they go. Reblog this post, make your own, or find someone in your life who doesn’t understand and do your best to make them understand. Donate if you can. 

The first Pride was a riot. We stand with you.

Right?! Now I'm itching to play again!

COMPLETED: Riptide GP: Renegade

Done! I got a little addicted there. It doesn't just invoke the nostalgia of Jet Moto and Hydro Thunder: it was also a lot of fun! Though the final challenges were...cheap.

So the game is fun. I really enjoyed it. I even like how they handled tricks, with which I have become more comfortable. You basically have to do tricks to maintain your boost to even have a fighting chance by the end of the game. But Imma complain a bit:

Not Enough Levels

This game feels inspired, in part, by Jet Moto (especially the ruins level, which is my favorite for that reason), and Jet Moto 1 only had 10 levels (one more than Riptide's 9). But that was a 1996 game. I think we've come to expect more of our entertainment.

I think lacking more than number of levels is level variety. Jet Moto 1 had four biomes: tropical island, rural swamp, snowy, and met track in the sky. Jet Moto 2 upped it to include even more variety: including a roller coaster and mine-shaft.

Riptide's levels mostly look the same. There's a military base, air base, and power plant that all look the same. Even typing this, I'm not quite sure I'm thinking of three different levels. In design, the levels do have their own personality, but they don't have enough character (for me).

15 would have been a good number of tracks ;)

Bullshit difficulty

For the most part, I was able to beat the challenges fairly easily. Sometimes I needed vehicular upgrades or more practice with boost-building tricks. But by the time you get to the final challenges--the BS reveals itself.

Firstly, the AI racers are immovable. They can bump me out of the way, or pressure me out of my racing line. But I can't seem to do anything to them. That's not a horrible thing until you get to the later racers where victory often comes at fractions of a second, and most of the racers are in a pack. So fighting to get ahead, I felt bullied by a computer.

What's worse, many of the tracks feature police riders. Their speeds are seemingly unlimited: as they can catch up to me no matter. They also seemed dead set on only attacking the player. So not only am I fighting 7 racers, but I've got 2 other bullies bashing me around and no matter how fast I go or how well I race, they're always wife me: bumping me off course, reducing me speed, pushing me away from ramps to perform tricks.

I've lost hours of my life dealing with bullshit cop bots fucking with me.

Because the cop-bots disrupt one's ability to win: it removes skill and player agency to win, replacing it with random chance. Maybe I get lucky and the cop doesn't cut me off and slam on it's brakes. Maybe I get lucky and I don't miss that ramp I need to boost into first place cause a cop rams me. Maybe I get lucky and I'm able to hold a good racing line because the cops aren't bashing me from all sides.

It felt cheap.

Then there's also the AI. There's some rubber-banding happening, which often keeps games interesting: opponents never get too far ahead so that there's no hope, but also the player is never able to completely wipe the floor with other racers. I don't really like rubber banding, as it also disrupts the player's skill.

It was particularly apparent in a few "boss battles" on the highest difficulty. I would see AI racers pull away from me despite me being at full boost. But then at another part of the track the racer appeared to slam on their brakes and come to a near stop for no reason. It just looked like program behavior. Maybe it was meant to provide an exciting experience--but it mostly just pissed me off in the final stages.

I still like it though

The bullshit difficulty didn't really become an issue till the end of the game (where strangely most of the vehicles are unlocked but don't provide advantage of one another...). I could have stopped playing sooner. Who cares if I get every star in the career mode? I do. That's who (unfortunately). So I was addicted by the accessible gameplay and charming experience, but driven mad by the cheap difficulty. I still really like the game. But I need some space before I play it again.

I still need to try online mode though...

The ACLU is tracking anti-LGBTQ legislation across the US. See what’s going on in your state.

Out of Range is a beautiful and grim Sci-Fi adventure where you discover the secret of the lighthouse on a mysterious abandoned island.

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