Attending Combo Breaker is the highlight of my year every year. In 2025 I was able to fit Frosty Faustings into my travel budget too. Managed to place 17th in Mystery Bracket both times, and they were very wild bracket runs. I saw Gyakuten Puzzle Bancho and turned to my opponent to utter a sentence no one wants to hear in Mystery: “I’m sorry, I know how to play this game.” Also at CB I was able to make it out of pools in Under Night In-Birth II, and it was a hella stacked bracket so I’m pretty happy with that one.

Been focusing more on my mahjong career, attended Riichi Nomi Open and Philadelphia Riichi Open as my first two tournaments. Didn’t do so hot though. But of course, when I win it’s because I’m skilled, when I lose it was just bad luck.

New arcade opened up near me with modded Maimai, Wacca, and Chunithm cabinets. I told myself I’m never going back to Round 1 again, though R1 does have the new official international Maimai now so I guess that’s something. I also got back into Dance Dance Revolution a little, but I’m still not very good.

As for actual new releases, Deltarune is obvious. Kirby Air Riders is a sequel I waited 22 years for, and it was worth the wait. The original is one of my favorite games of all time and I’m blown away by how much higher they raised the bar. Online City Trial is everything childhood me ever dreamed of. And I have to shout out Rhythm Doctor finally exiting Early Access, the final chapter is a wonderful conclusion that gave me a lot of emotions.

Tokyo Godfathers (2003) and The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Visual novels would be good if you’re looking for something low-energy.

One of the bonus levels in Rhythm Doctor is a Bits and Bops collab. There’s also an Unbeatable level, so it’s a funny coincidence to have all three games launch in the same week.

It felt like one of those sappy motivational posters, but dragged out over 200 pages.

Boing.

I don’t think every Fediverse platform needs to support every type of post, and I especially don’t think it’s an impending catastrophe if they don’t. In fact I think it’s better to specialize. Even though Mbin supports microblogging, I prefer using this account solely for threads and a separate Pleroma account for microblogging.

Sounds like the problem is just trying to chase infinite growth, expecting every game to sell more than the last.

I wouldn’t worry. Dread was extremely well received, and set up a big plot hook for a continuation.

How do they deal with CSAM and other illegal material? (I’m guessing the answer is that they don’t)

I think you’re describing the Nintendo DS.

Kirby Air Riders definitely feels like it keeps that spirit alive. The game could’ve just been City Trial and I would’ve paid $70 just to play City Trial, but they packed everything else in there too because they could.

The Fiend’s Cauldron from Kid Icarus Uprising. At the start of a stage, you have to wager currency on how high of a difficulty you want to attempt, on a sliding scale from 0.0 to 9.0. Higher difficulties cost more to play, and if you fail, you lose your bet and the difficulty drops if you choose Continue. It’s an interesting system for how it forces you to check your ego and self-evaluate just how much you think you can handle.

Get whichever platform has the games she wants to play.

The bully who pretended to be my friend in order to hurt me.

TF2 was the original gacha game.

If I’m going to put 100+ hours into a game, there better be a setting to mute BGM, because no matter how good the OST is I will eventually tire of it and want to listen to something else.

Several of my favorite games are ones I sadly have no one to play with anymore.

Grinding evasion by dual wielding shields and attacking yourself is peak game design.

If you’d read the article, Valve says they’re working with anticheat devs to come up with a solution together. This can only happen with their cooperation, if Valve somehow could bypass it on their own that would represent a vulnerability that should and would get patched.