After a year away, Screenshot Saturday Sundays returns on a new day. Started by Jay Castello in 2019 then continued by Nat Clayton and now me, it's a weekly skim through the pretty, weird, and interesting work-in-progress peeks that indie devs post on Twitter for Screenshot Saturday. This week, we have bodyboarding with actual bodies, a great many doors being kicked, and several good fish.
Part of the modern soundscape is a sing-song synthetic voice telling us about everything from slime recipes and teenage drama to unionisation procedures and scissor-wielding 'fashion hacks' that surely are covert fetish videos. It is TikTok's text-to-speech voice, and it is everywhere. Now it's even in Half-Life, thanks to a mod which replaces the opening tram ride voiceover with a TikTok TTS version. It's a distressing artifact, and I hate that it kinda works. See/hear for yourself in the video below.
PAX East 2022 has officially closed its doors for another year. We've had a great time over the last four days, but alas, it's time for us to head back home to the RPS Treehouse, find a nice cosy corner, and sleep for 100 years. Before we do that, though, here's our final daly round-up video, which is all about games, games, games. Enjoy!
Of all the booths at PAX East 2022 this year, Larian's Baldur's Gate III stand was by far one of the most impressive. Not only did they construct an entire walled city to hark back to its iconic, titular location, but they also had an enormous Nautiloid crashed into the top of it. There was a Mindflayer statue on hand as well, for fans to pose with next to their official cosplayers, and a little campfire for attendees to have a small sit down on, just like they'd do when resting in the game. It was such an incredible booth that we asked Larian to give us a tour of it, and while we did so we also took the opportunity to chat a bit about the reception of Update 7, the confirmation of its 2023 release date and more.
Sundays are for accidentally scratching your wall and then obscuring the evidence with an anime figurine. Before you tactically position, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).
Day Three of PAX East 2022 is done and dusted for another year, which means it's time for another daily round-up video. We had another jam-packed schedule today, checking out Dome Keeper (formerly known as Ludum Dare darling Dome Romantik) over on the Raw Fury booth, before heading over to the PAX Rising Showcase to check out a specially curated selection of upcoming indie games. We also caught up with Larian to chat about Baldur's Gate 3 (watch out for a dedicated video coming in the next day or two), and we capped off the day by attending Shirley "Skyrim Grandma" Curry's panel over on the Bumblebee Theatre stage. I'll be writing up a separate post about this in the coming days, but needless to say, Shirley was an absolute delight>.
The first McPixel was one of those point and click adventures that was just so wholesomely silly that it won you over with its mix of daft humour and bonkers, quickfire 'save the day' scenarios. Now, everyone's favourite bomb disposal expert is back in McPixel 3 (solo developer Sos Sosowski prefers we never mention the likes of McPixel 2), which we got to see in action over at the Devolver booth at PAX East 2022. Sosowski took the reins for us in this demo, showing us exactly how not> to save the world in this equally comedic sequel, proving that the McPixel formula is still just as potent ten years on from the original.
PC hardare modding is never something I had the guts to try during my time in the RPS hardware mines, but after attending The Evolution Of PC Modding panel at PAX East this week, I wish I'd been a little bolder. Moderated by Overclocking-TV.com's Isaïe "Trouffman" Simonnet with special guests Joe Gialanella from ModMyMods, Eric "hobbseltoff" Hobbs from PC Modding Enthusiast, and Justin "Robeytech" Robey, these four experts took us through the history of PC modding over the last 15 years, the highs and lows of some of their very own builds, and what lies in store for PC modding going forward. It was a fascinating panel, and we caught up with Simonnet afterwards to try and recapture some of that excellent hardware chat for you folks at home.
I've been all out of sorts this week, reader. I don't know what day it is or whether I'm coming or going. Sometimes the wind makes the water outside the window move in the opposite direction it's supposed to. If I look outside I get travel sick. What fresh hell. No, no, far better to close the curtains 'gainst the cruelties of nature, and stare at a reassuringly solid screen instead. Here's what we're clicking on this weekend.
We're now halfway through PAX East 2022, which can only mean one thing: it's time for our second daily round-up video. Instead of plonking ourselves in the middle of the empty show floor after hours, we snuck back into Devolver's booth to film our Friday catch-up, where we started our day some 10 hours beforehand. We got the lowdown on McPixel 3 from solo dev Sos Sosowski, and marvelled once again at the lovely overgrown arcade cabinets of reverse citybuilder Terra Nil. We then moved over to the Focus stand to play supernatural cowboy slayer Evil West and the ultra fast FPS Warstride Challenges. We also stopped by the Pinny Arcade communtiy meet-up today, and sat in on a couple of panels, including one about the history of PC hardware modding and a Wordle Royale. Find out exactly what that means in the video below.