Nuclear Monster


  • The Witness was one of my favorite games to play last year, and I’d like to start giving away extra Steam keys I end up with. This is not at all in collaboration with Thekla, Inc, I just have an extra Steam key to give away. Enter on this page, where there will be other give aways every so often.

    This is the first time I’m trying out this software for running a give away, so there might be issues with this first one.

  • Gruber:

    Apple is currently hard at work on a “completely rethought” Mac Pro, with a modular design that can accommodate high-end CPUs and big honking hot-running GPUs, and which should make it easier for Apple to update with new components on a regular basis. They’re also working on Apple-branded pro displays to go with them.

    Sounds great, what’s the catch?

    These next-gen Mac Pros and pro displays “will not ship this year”. (I hope that means “next year”, but all Apple said was “not this year”.)

    Well, I guess at least “they’re working on it.” Is better than cancelling the Mac Pro and continuing to sell the 4 year old version at the same price.

  • Nathan Grayson:

    Valve is about to overhaul Steam in order to ensure that good games are visible and lazily developed games created for the purpose of making a quick buck—which Valve apparently calls “fake games”—sink beneath a sea of algorithms.

    I’m not sure how this works, Valve have gone from saying that they want to take a more hands-off approach (back in 2014) to this new war on “fake games.”

    The problem with this system, of course, is that it risks burying a handful of good games, as well. To combat this issue, Valve is going to introduce a program called Steam Explorers. Explorers will play through queues of games that haven’t been selling super well. If they dig a game, they can flag it. The more games get flagged, the more the algorithmic gods will smile upon them.

    Anybody will be able to be an Explorer, much like Steam Curators. They’ll also get their own forum, so they can do things like arrange multiplayer matches in games that nobody else is playing.

    The solution to all problems is unpaid labor from their community while they’re raking in profits. If this were EA with Origin, or Ubisoft’s uPlay, or basically anyone besides Valve, there would be a lot more people upset about not being paid to work. Or you would hope that people would be upset about their passion for games being exploited when Valve could just hire people to help curate the service.

  • Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island creators Gary Winnick and Ron Gilbert have just put out a new adventure game, Thimbleweed Park. It’s a mystery set in 1987 featuring five new weirdos to do adventure with, and has full controller support. I’m on-board, but Ron Gilbert doesn’t need much to sell me on his work.

    Thimbleweed Park is out now for $20 on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Xbox.

  • Before January 20th one of our national embarrassment’s favorite things to criticize President Obama about (over Twitter) was his penchant for golfing:

    This shameful embarrassment has been golfing 12 times in his first few months as president. Each trip costs us a few million dollars, and of course he promised “We’re not gonna be big on vacation.” while he was decrying the Obama administration.