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Tycho

Deciding which Tomb Raider joke to do is actually very difficult.  The game is such an exercise in extremity that it reads as parody very quickly, whenever it’s not showing you something so incredibly gross you reach reflexively for your own throat while it says look what you just did.

One of the ideas keys off of the clear, presumably merit-based equipment hierarchy that seems to exist.  I’d tell you the other ones, but maybe we’ll still have a chance to do them.  I haven’t been able to play it at home, because it did not work.  There are some games I want to play on computers, and this was one of them - I got real tantalized by their crazy hair, which would no doubt have been very impressive in a functioning game.  My experience thus far was that it looked more or less like like haunted black spaghetti and then the game crashed.

Ben’s been talking to Tomb Writer Rhianna Pratchett a bunch, seriously, and if you want to know more (or you’ve already defeated the game, and simply want to return to the days of your youth) you should head over to PAR.

It looks like the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter really shit the bed, squatting hard over a measly two and a half million dollars in just under a week.  I’m sure they’re staring listelessly into whatever reflective surface is handy, wondering where exactly their lives took such a gruesome turn.  I want to take a second to emphasize the totality of this thing though: Torment: Tides of Numenera is a licensed product, just like the first one.  It’s just that the product they’re licensing this time around is also a creator owned, Kickstarter-funded enterprise.

It’s a late hour to be whipping up some breed of Kickstarter triumphalism, but the whole enterprise is so parallel to the existing structures that you blink a few times, involuntarily, just thinking about it.

(CW)TB out.

(instrumental)

Gabe

It took four years but Pinny Arcade is finally a reality! I came back from a trip to Disneyland totally hooked on Disney Pin Trading. I loved the experience of finding cool pins around the park and trading with cast members. I immediately started thinking about doing something similar with Penny Arcade. It’s taken a long time but Pinny Arcade is the result.

Right now you can purchase the starter set which includes a custom lanyard and four pins.

You will also be able to get the starter set at any PAX you attend. We will also have special pins that are only available at certain events. So if you want the PAX Australia inaugural pin you need to attend the show or trade with someone who did.

We have tons of ideas for pins based on Penny Arcade comics. We have fifteen years of material to draw on and no shortage of fun characters. You can expect to see pins based on all your favorite stuff from the strip like Twisp and Catsby, The Lookouts, Deep Crow, and a million other things.


In addition to Penny Arcade stuff we will also be creating pins based on gaming in general. For example at PAX East this year you’ll be able to get a special Magic the Gathering pin from the WOTC booth. This is an official Pinny Arcade pin made by us with the seal on the back. Ideally I want PAX shows to be full of these awesome pins. At future shows you might be able to get a Master Chief pin from the MS booth, custom Street Fighter pins from Capcom or a limited edition pin from Sony commemorating the launch of the PS4!

My vision is to create a set of pins based not just on PA stuff but on material from all your favorite games! So this is honestly just the beginning.


Designing these pins was a lot of fun. Figuring out how much detail you can fit into a pin and still have it look great took some time. Here’s an example of what my design for the Gabe pin looks like:

I want to thank Kiko, Erika, and Levin our incredible graphic designers for helping me get this project off the ground and Brian our merch guy for working his ass off to get these not just made but made to our ridiculous standards. I’m so proud of the final result and I cannot wait to start trading with you guys at PAX East in just a couple weeks!

-Gabe out