The first ever collaboration between Acquisitions Intoxicated and Two Beers Brewing hits stores today - check out the can, by our own Gavin Greco and Dabe Alan:

I’ll be hitting their immaculate tasting room The Woods with Acquisitions Intoxicated brewmaster Eric Benson as soon as I can get there after work, which means the fuckin’ 520, so hopefully between 6:30 and 7pm.  But this easy sippin’ hazy, crafted with our precious channel and featuring Belma hops front and center is hitting a ton of the best bottle shops we have in town and out - here’s where it’s dropping.  Definitely call for availability because I don’t know when it’s gonna hit the shelf.

North of Seattle and East Side
Hop’n Hound
Elizabeth Station
Stogies & Hops
Special Brews
Brigid’s
CRFT Beers
Malt N Vine

Seattle
Full Throttle
Chuck’s Union
Chuck’s Greenwood
Bottle Works
Downtown Spirits
Super Deli Mart
Beer Junction
A1 Hop Shop 144th
A1 Hop Shop 104th
Beer Star
Beer Authority

South Sound
Peaks and Pints
Pint Defiance
Copper Door
Tacoma Boys
Beer Star
PJ’s Market
Local Boys
Caskades
Rainier Growlers
Oly Taproom

(CW)TB

PARTNER PINS

Stormland Pin [Oculus]
Available to the first 200 attendees that take a photo of Stormland android at the Oculus booth #803 and share it.

Asgard’s Wrath Pin [Oculus]
Available to the first 200 attendees that play a demo at the Oculus booth #803.

Lone Echo Pin [Oculus]
Available to the first 200 attendees that play an Oculus demo at VR Freeplay located at the Westin.

Psychonauts 2: Lili & RAD: Home Slice Pins [Double Fine]
Available for purchase at the Double Fine booth #6608.

Dead Cells: Falconner & Dead Cells: The Giant Pins [Motion Twin]
Available for purchase at the Motion Twin/Dead Cells booth #7208.

Sayonara Wild Hearts & If Found Pins [Annapurna Interactive]
Available at the Annapurna Games booth #6908 with the game demo for each pin and is available for purchase.

Slug-Man Pin [Bill Amend]
Available for purchase at the Bill Amend table in Bandland.

Glow Man Pin [Kris Straub]
Available for purchase at the Kris Straub table in Bandland.

Iceborne Pin [Capcom]
Receive an Iceborne pin by completing the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne demo at the Capcom booth #1102.

Skull Pilot Pin [Stellar Jockeys]
Available for purchase at the Stellar Jockeys booth #7410.

We’re Doomed! Pin [Breaking Games]
Available for purchase at the Breaking Games booth SKY 9.

20XX Nina Pin [Batterystaple]
Available for purchase at the Batterystaple booth #7401.

Moving Out Pin [SMG Studio]
Available for purchase at the SMG Studio booth #6310.

Rowan Kenrith Pin [Pastimes]
Available for purchase at the Pastimes booth #SKY 3, Gamer Mats booth #SKY 5, and the Raven Theatre Magic: The Gathering.

Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated Halfling Pin [Dire Wolf Digital]
Available for purchase at the Dire Wolf Digital booth #6103 or as a free gift when you buy Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated!

TTCO: Quinquennial Pin [Tabletop Co-op]
Available for purchase at the Tabletop Co-op booth #TT11.

Secret Fox Pin [Finji]
Available for purchase at the Finji booth #6210.

Quiplash Pin [Jackbox Games]
Win a game at the Jackbox Stage to get a pin, or you can get one the easy way by purchasing one.

Ensemble Pin [Toronto Gaymers]
Available for purchase in the Diversity Lounge.

Just Sunshines & Beats Pin [Berzerk Studio]
Available for purchase at the Berzerk Studio booth #7016.

Northwest Gibb Pin [LoadingReadyRun]
Available for purchase at the LoadingReadyRun table in Bandland.

Take This Heart Pin [Take This]
Available at the Take This Hope Booth in the Diversity Lounge with a donation. All funds raised help continue our efforts at Take This.

Dice Echidna Pin [Level Up Dice]
Available for purchase at the Level Up Dice booth #SKY 1.

Tyrannex Pin [Spearhead Games]
Available for purchase or get a pin when you play Project Witchstone and sign up for our newsletter at the Spearhead Games booth #6314.

Yooka-Laylee Pin [Team17]
Available at the Team 17 booth #1117. Come play two Team 17 games including Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair to earn your Yooka-Laylee pin.

AbleGamers Charity Pin [The AbleGamers® Foundation Inc]
Donate $20 at the AbleGamers Charity booth in the Diversity Lounge to get this exclusive pin! Your donations allow AbleGamers to continue creating opportunities that enable play, in order to combat social isolation, foster inclusive communities, and improve the quality of life for people with disabilities.

EKO Tidal Blades Pin [Skybound]
Available for purchase or as a gift with a purchase of $25 at the Skybound booth #6215.

Nourishment Pin [Game to Grow]
Available for purchase at the Table Titans booth #7609.

WORLD OF HORROR: Mimi Pin [Ysbryd]
Play the new demo of WORLD OF HORROR at the Ysbryd booth #2401 to receive a Mimi pin. Limited to 100 free pins each day. Pin also available for purchase.

Eat Me Chip Pin [Cookie Brigade]
Available for purchase from our CC Brigade volunteers that can be found at the main queue each morning or follow @cookie_brigade on twitter for announcements of places and times you can find them.

The Train Computer Pin [C63 Industries]
Available for purchase at the C63 booth #7115.

Squidge Pin [Giant Margarita]
There will be daily giveaways with our “Beat the Devs Challenge” and the pins will also be available for purchase at the Giant Margarita booth #5013.

The Last of Us Part II Winter Ellie Pin [Sony Interactive]
Available for purchase at the Sony Interactive booth #203.

Danielle the Smithy Pin [Flight School Studio]
Available for purchase at the Flight School Studio booth #656.

IndieMEGAcam Pin [Indie MEGABOOTH]
Follow Indie MEGABOOTH on Twitter or Instagram (@indiemegabooth) and post photos at 3 different game booths featured in our spaces (MINIBOOTH or MEGABOOTH). Include @indiemegabooth & #IMBPAXWest19 along with your post. Show us your post(s) at IMB HQ/booth #849 and you’ll get a $5 discount off our pin! Limited discounts/supplies per day, first come first serve! The IndieMEGAcam pin is also available for purchase.

Borderlands 3 Pin [2K Games]
Available at the 2K Games booth #1601

SHOW PINS

PAX West 2019 Pin Set
Available at the Official PAX Merch Booths located in the WSCC Lobby and the Sheraton Lobby.

Limited Edition PAX West 2019 Pin Set
ONLY available at the Sheraton Lobby PAX Merch Booth.

Fleshreaper Kemper Pin
Available at the Official PAX Merch Booths located in the WSCC Lobby and the Sheraton Lobby with any purchase of $65 or more.

Merch 7.0 Pin
Available at the Official PAX Merch Booths located in the WSCC Lobby and the Sheraton with any purchase of $100 or more.

PAX Explorers League Set 1 Pin Set
Available at the Official PAX Merch Booths located in the WSCC Lobby and the Sheraton Lobby.

PIN QUEST

Get your Pin Quest here.

I occasionally get a feeling that I’ve learned to pay very close attention to.  I was walking around Brenna’s campus when I was visiting out there a while back and I just started to laugh.  Enough phenomena had adopted a fortuitous angle that it wouldn’t be impossible to pay rent off of Penny Arcade.  Improbable, maybe.  But that’s a gulf you can fill.  My metaphor doesn’t have you filling that with planning or youthful enthusiasm or anything like that.  In my version, the one I’ve lived, you fill it with failure.  You fill it with so much failure that, ultimately, you just… walk across.

I think that the feeling is the result of a subconscious matrix of factors.  I’m not trying to get woo woo or anything.  I just think that once things achieve a kind of superposition it’s possible to be aware of its auspicious nature.  Then, you know, all you have to do is throw your life in the garbage based on a dream.

So, my job is weird now - much weirder than it used to be, and it was already pretty fuckin’ weird.  I used to make comics and name things.  And, I guess, play Myself in various real space locales.  I didn’t have anything approximating operational control.  As soon as I got it, I used it to join teams of people - inside or outside Penny Arcade - that could make ridiculous shit.  For example: an official Acquisitions Incorporated book that honors the decade of stories we’ve put together, while giving you what you need to tell your own.  I will never tire of emphasizing that this is an official book.  It required a team of global experts, like a high-stakes museum heist.  But we were working on something else at the same time.

I’ve wanted to do something with Dire Wolf since I’d met a few of them in a previous incarnation, that of SOE Denver, cranking out digital CCGs for settings like Everquest and… Stargate, for some reason.  I didn’t watch Stargate and I didn’t play Everquest, but I was obsessed with both of those games.  I kept in touch, and said if they ever wanted to put something together they should let me know, but I was thinking something in the digital space like they’ve done with Eternal or the Pokemon TCG.  When they ended up having a surprise hit on their hands with Clank!, the possibility space for a collaboration got somewhat wider.

First we were thinking about a version of Clank - they’d done that before, with Clank! In! Space! so it occupied a conceivable realm.  But then I asked if it could be a legacy game, and if you could keep playing after the story was done, which now that I think back on it might have been rude.  But it sounded interesting, and new, oh, and also, they fucking did it.  My touch will be most obvious in The Book of Secrets, or in Flavor Text on cards, which is my favorite task of all.  But everybody did what they did best, and it’s real, and it works.

Here’s what The Dice Tower had to say:

And here’s what Man vs Meeple had to say:

...but I can break it down for you.  Somehow, and in accordance with the feeling I had, we put our heads together with Dire Wolf to make a persistent deck building game that tells a story around your actions and reacts to how you play.  And when you’re done, it’s not over.  There might be more still to find, on a board you can play forever.  These videos pay the game compliments I won’t even type here because it feels weird - I would feel like an asshole saying these things about my own game.  All I’ll say is that you can pre-order it, and if you do, it comes with a Pinny Arcade Pin and three extra cards.

I love Mike’s cover.  My job for most strips is incredibly easy, I literally just have fun with my friend for a little while and then he has to go browbeat millions of pixels into good behavior.  I am more than pleased with the trade.

(CW)TB out.

Dreaded Continuity - a corrupted phrase from a haunted era - has reared its ugly head yet again, plunging all into darkness.  Or jpegs, at the very least.

I saw somebody asking in the responses to the strip on Twitter if we were being paid by Blue Mountain, a digital greeting card site that most people aren’t even aware of. I’d love for that to be true. In fact, we did all of this for nothing! It is not a compelling business case.  In the same way about that rock bands seem to enter a portion of their trajectory that passes exclusively through Casinos, I would be overjoyed to enter a phase of my career where I promote heartwarming, ephemeral “cards” and “creams” of various kinds - those creams so vital to the old.

Here’s an interesting bottle message from more than twenty years ago - from a time when Microsoft was being chastised about blocking people’s thoughtful Blue Mountain eCards. I wonder if Blue Mountain, in their tender wisdom, ever made a Blue Mountain eCard to ease the blow of not having received a prior Blue Mountain eCard.  Almost certainly.

This was back when Microsoft was “the problem” - remember?  Back then, the institutional reflex at least wiggled toward some kind of performative action.  We thought not getting the spam somebody was trying to send you was Trouble Town back then.  It’s funny, right?  In that way which isn’t actually funny?

(CW)TB out.

PAX West is just around the corner and the Penny Arcade design team has been hard at work making a bunch of cool stuff. If you’re curious about what you’ll be able to pick up at the show this year I’ve got you covered.

But that’s not all!

You won’t find deals like this at any other PAX West in 2019!

I’ll be at PAX with my friend Jerry. I hope to see you there!

-Gabe out