The patch note is an underappreciated art form. Among the dry details of damage buffs and bug fixes are occasionally brilliant puns or revelatory details about the absurd complexity of videogames. Dwarf Fortress is the undisputed king of unintentionally hilarious updates ("Cleaned up the bear situation"), but we've also written about some of the all-time greats from Ark: Survival Evolved, Rust, and World of Warcraft.

Absurdity is always with us, though, and the good gods know we've needed every laugh we could find in 2017. To find the very best ones, I dove through the 2017 community updates and patch notes from all kinds of games. Deep, open-world survival games are always good for a laugh. After all, they model systems like pooping and sleeping, and a mention of "shitting the bed" is already 90 percent of a joke.

H1Z1

12/13

• Blood effects have been changed back to the classic mist effect. 

12/7

• Toxic Cargo Pants have been updated to be more consistent 

11/15 

• Shooting from a passenger seat should no longer result in hitting a teammate in the backseat. 

8/29 

• Old rocks have been removed and replaced with new, varied rock formations.
• Players should no longer fall out of their parachute. 

7 Days to Die

via reddit user u/nettech09

10/26 

• Some general improvements to zombie jumping
• Fixed: Snakes are fireproof

8/31

• Fixed: Businessman Zombie when killed can have his head dislocated when he falls backwards 
• Fixed: Vultures can fly underwater
• Fixed: Bears and wolves walk on water 

8/04

• Fixed: Wrong open sound on eviscerated remains
• Fixed: Dysentery description does not mention that it is lethal 

6/06

• Added: Moldy Bread is a science crafting item
• Changed: Fat zombie cops are bigger
• Changed: Zombie soldiers are less generous with the rocket launchers
• Fixed: Breaking down a car on the sloped road will create a hole in the world 

Oxygen Not Included

10/5

• Stress vomiting Duplicants infected with Hypothermia should no longer vomit "Hypothermia germs" 

8/31

• Fixed a crash that could occur if a Duplicant died while using a wash basin 

3/02

• Algae distillery has a much longer conversion interval
• Duplicants no longer use the massage table during red alert 

Ylands

12/9

• Horse is no longer perceived as a threat when sleeping 

Medieval Engineers

via reddit user u/zacrynix

12/12

• Fixed a crash when you walk on the exact north pole. 

11/28

• The Janitor will now clean up any static grids in the center of the planet. 

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

via reddit user u/beerye 

12/27  

• Fixed the issue where the falling speed meter text was showing abnormally in Portuguese 

12/11

• Fixed the issue where player's footstep sound was silenced when player moved diagonally or wore particular shoes 

12/8

• Fixed the issue where while vaulting in FPP, player could look inside own body 

Lone Echo

8/30 

• Repeatedly punching the dummies will no longer result in a crash. Swing away. 

Prey

via reddit user u/everypostepic 

8/2

• Fixed crash when mimicking bass guitar in the Yellow Tulip.
• Player can no longer bypass ceiling collision by mantling GLOO. 
• If the player manages to fully GLOO the greater mimic while it is in mid-lunge toward the player's face, the facegrab animation will no longer play and trap the player. 

5/31

• Superfruit no longer appears shrunken and flat when fully grown.

As I slogged deeper and deeper into the year, dozens of tabs open across three monitors and a laptop, I started to get a little delirious. It was in this moment that I fell in love with the long-suffering community managers and blog writers who compile patch notes. These poor people cry out for help with little quips, "just to see if anyone is still reading this." My friends: I see you, and I love you. 

Astroneer

12/18

• Fixed a few other instances of Client players getting stuck in a wheelie while driving a Rover in Multiplayer games. 

10/12

• Fixed an issue where Rovers would fly into space when loading a save from a rover seat 

9/15

• Fixed a rare crash, that according to engineers was “super weird, and something that should never occur,” involving the game trying to access non-existent Rover wheels.
• Fixed an issue where items would go on a beautiful journey into space if not collected from an dead Astroneer before a second death occurs. 

Hitman

via reddit user u/newbzoors 

7/13

• We've fixed an issue that could cause the toilet in the Marrakesh school to behave erratically after 47 kicks it onto Zaydan. This could occasionally result in 47's death. Seriously. 

Total War: Warhammer

via reddit user u/flavahbeast 

10/25

• FIXED an issue with the AI proposing peace right after entering a war with the player
• FIXED a staircase in Lothern Siege battle map which would cause chariots to spontaneously combust
• FIXED CA Cinematics Team’s obsession with slaying High Elves. May require further testing…
• FIXED Spearmen unit in Tor Elithis Rogue army T-Posing
• Skavenslaves: more salt added to diet; now 25% more delicious 

8/9

• Under-Morking no longer automatically leads to over-Gorking, and vice-versa. The waxing or waning of Morrslieb may affect this. Or it may not. 

We talked about the Middle Ages construction/destruction sim Medieval Engineers a bit last year, in part (speaking for myself, anyway) because it's so much fun to watch great stone structures get smashed into little tiny pieces. That doesn't necessarily make for a great game, though, and so developer Keen Software House has rolled out a major update that "re-launches" the project with a multitude of new features including a more detailed planet, an improved rendering engine, and the ability to claim territory and ally (or go to war) with other players.

"Having a planet in Medieval Engineers creates a play area that is many times bigger than the flat worlds that we had before. The planet can have many plants, animals and barbarians with plenty of room for players," studio founder Marek Rosa wrote on his blog. "We ve designed areas of the terrain so that players can build fortifications to defend their territory. The planet and all of its settings can be modded and shared through the Steam Workshop."

Player may also create their own customized banners that can be used to identify themselves or mark off territory, and like most of the rest of the game's content, they can be modded and shared with others. Smaller improvements to the game include the addition of doors, new particle effects, a wardrobe, and the ability to play as a female engineer.

Taken together, the update sounds like it will bring Medieval Engineers into a much more game-like state than it was previously, and that's reflected in the new gameplay trailer, too. Whether it will be enough to satisfy the recent Steam commenters who have decried the game as abandoned is another matter entirely, but at the very least it looks like a good start. A full breakdown of the changes is available on the Keen Software House forum.

Thanks, Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Medieval Engineers is all about using ye olden technology to build machines and structures in a physics-based world. That, of course, means that what is built can be destroyed, and that's really the hook for me. Building things may have socially redeeming value, but smashing them is where the fun is at. And the only thing more fun than smashing a sandcastle you've built is kicking in someone else's.

Developer Marek Rosa clarified on his blog that the multiplayer component added in today's update isn't the new one that programmer Ondrej Petrzilka talked about in April, but is actually the same version of multiplayer that was in Keen Software's previous game, Space Engineers. The studio wanted to get some form of multiplayer working because the game is more fun with other people, he explained, adding that he expects it will see the player base "increase significantly."

"[Multiplayer] supports all the features that are now in the game, in both Creative and Survival modes, building and destruction, structural integrity, mechanical parts, blueprints, mods, synchronized daytime and AI characters (barbarians, peasants and deer)," Rosa said. "In more simple words, you can do everything that is possible now in the single-player but with your friends."

The latest update makes a few other changes to the game as well, including increased peasant health for better AI survivability, some new sounds, and a few bug fixes. Rosa said development of Medieval Engineers is "progressing at a good pace," and that there are now enough blocks in the game to enable the creation of just about any kind of structure. "Our programmers are focusing more on the survival mode and you should expect more survival based features in the upcoming weeks," he said. "Some of the most important are a battle system, melee fight, etc... Stay tuned!"

To see more of what can be done (and undone) with Medieval Engineers, have a look at our collection of some of the best videos for learning how to create and destroy things in the game. Medieval Engineers is available now on Steam Early Access.

While we've all been intrigued, impressed, and occasionally horrified by the creations springing forth from Besiege, there's a rather more serious medieval sandbox out there waiting to tempt your building skills. Medieval Engineers, from Keen Software House, the makers of Space Engineers, is now in Early Access if you're looking to build some castles and then knock them down.

I've spent a little time in Medieval Engineers recently, and a little more time watching videos to understand just how to build something that actually works. If you've started playing yourself, or are interested in doing so, here's a selection of videos that might be of interest.

Basic ConstructionFrom Arron of Last Stand Gamers, a nice introduction to the basics of how controls work, how to build blocks within blocks, and how to get started building the medieval city of your medieval dreams.

CatapultThis tutorial from xBeau Gaming will help you put together your first catapult. It also demonstrates how hard it can be to hit the thing you're aiming at.

Floating Arm TrebuchetOne of the more impressive and complicated siege engine designs I've seen is from w4stedspace, who built a giant floating arm trebuchet.

WindmillA quick and concise tutorial on how to build a windmill from IamPetard.

Working ClocktowerThis is impressive. Ironvos has built a lovely looking and structurally sound clock tower. The clock works, too, though it runs about 15 times real speed. Take a tour, won't you?

Helm's DeepLooking for something a bit bigger? Steam workshop user Timathius created this massive replica of Helm's Deep from Lord of the Rings. You can tour it in this dramatic video from I Played Gamezz.

DestructionBuilding is only half the fun: knocking everything down is the rest. In this video, Raptor takes you on a tour of his detailed medieval city, and then proceeds to reduce the entire thing to rubble. The destruction begins at 12:16.

More DestructionSome more fun footage of buildings falling down, this time from Gamestar, who includes some important lessons on structural integrity so your buildings won't fall down (until you want them to).

BarbariansNPCs, in the form of barbarians, we added in a recent update. Video Sage puts the new NPCs through the paces.

Naturally, the game has its own alpha tutorial video, worth checking out as well.

Medieval Engineers is a very niche sort of game. As its Steam Early Access page puts it, it's about "engineering, construction, and the maintenance of architectural works and mechanical equipment using medieval technology." It sounds a bit like Minecraft, but there's a much greater emphasis on the laws of physics and the need to design and build within those limitations. And when you don't, bad things happen.

It's all about structural integrity, especially when somebody starts flinging cannonballs at your fortifications. But developer Keen Software House says that while it can be played as an action game, "We expect players to avoid engaging in direct man-to-man combat and instead use their creativity and engineering skills to build war machines and fortifications. Medieval Engineers shouldn't be about troops; it should be about the machinery you build."

My experiences playing in real-world sandboxes as a child leads me to think that this might be an optimistic take on the situation—I like smashing them down a lot more than putting them up—but a game like this is clearly aimed at a very specific audience that might have a different attitude toward such things. And Keen Software House does have some idea what it's talking about: Its first game, Space Engineers, sold over a million copies in its first year of release, despite still being in Early Access itself.

Medieval Engineers launches on Steam Early Access on February 19.