The only “real” bit of news this week, Combo Breaker 2025 is going on live now if you’re seeing this day one. As a matter of fact, I’m going to probably be launching this week’s update a bit early just to get the news out about the tournament so you can all watch it fresh. Even if you miss it, vods will be available on the appropriate twitch channels.
Fun little story this week to start things off, so please bare with me. Have you ever been so slightly above mediocre that you’re accused of cheating? That’s pretty much what happened to me in a recent interaction with a guild I was (am still) in. Now the story has a happy ending (I cleared my name, apologies were given) but it’s quite the back handed compliment to get from decades of playing video games. Lots of extra details in the audio blog, but I guess this old cat still has claws! Now excuse while I eat some pudding, take my medications and start my afternoon nap. (Names redacted above, but I’m the fish avatar)
Out of pure cosmic coincidence, I recently restarted an incremental game on an old tablet I found in storage. The game is called Clickpocalypse 2, and it’s both on PC and Android for free. I remember thinking to myself “there’s no way anyone can beat this game in a reasonable amount of time”, and a decade later Emily (u/CoinForWares) shows how it’s done. I was able to beat the game (1 run) in less than 72 hours (horrendously un-optimized by the way) but all because of the advice given in the reddit thread above. This is why I didn’t loose my cool when I was accused of cheating in the other game, because I easily could have been on the other end of it in another context entirely with a different game.
Since we’re on the topic of speedruns / jaw dropping times in games, I thought I would upload a run by Daravae of the recently released Doom The Dark Ages. It goes without saying MASSIVE SPOILERS if you decide to watch the above video and have not yet played the game. The fact that runs like this exist when leaderboards for the game haven’t even launched yet just shows how dedicated and skilled some folks are. And why I want to remind everyone I’m some dusty middle aged man with marginal skills on my best days.
Artist is bluefield
Artist of the week is the talented bluefield with their image of some Hololive members. There’s something about this composition that I really like, because all the waifus seem to have their own space but not crowding one another or hogging the spotlight. Hard to put into words, but I just think it’s “striking” for all the right reasons, and it straddles that line of being borderline inappropriate. Well done!