Friday Round-Up: Lovecraftian Horrors on Mars, James Damore AMA,

Moons of Madness looks like fun, doesn’t it? Granted, fun is a relative concept; for me, fun can easily be described as a “Lovecraftian horror game set on Mars,” which also attempts to explore mental health issues in a mature way…while being a hard sci-fi space simulator. Is developer RockPocket Games biting off more than they can chew? I sure hope not!
I don’t actually like horror games, note. It’s been a horribly long time since I’ve even played one!

Moving onto a  somewhat politically charged topic…Remember James Damore, that Google Engineer who got fired for writing a critical document about diversity Google’s ideological echo chamber? He gave an AMA, and it was interesting. I haven’t personally had the time to read the document in its entirety, although I did check out its beginning, and it didn’t sound sexist; rather, it seemed to be going for a calm, rational discussion. I can’t speak for the entirety of its contents, obviously, but the entire debacle around Damore makes for an important case study: Should someone be fired for his differing political and social views, if these make some of his coworkers feel like they’re working in a…violent working environment, was it?
My personal views–this kind of speech shouldn’t be punished. It’s not hateful, or bigoted; it doesn’t call for hurting a portion of the populace. That’s part of the reason why I was so surprised to see the amount of backlash online and on Google.
The AMA is worth a read, at any rate.

Back to gaming, and other news!

Dead in Vinland is coming next year, and I find its graphic style and turn-based survival to be curious enough to keep an eye out in the coming months before its release. You can never have enough hand-drawn games to play, can you?
Apparently it’s based on the core gameplay loop of a game called Dead in Bermuda, with which I have no experience what-so-ever. Perhaps I ought to check it out and write a little something about it.

Book Depository is great, if you-like me- are in a country where shipping costs LOADS OF MONEY! Free shipping is great, and the waiting time (12 days, or 8 business days, in my case, with another two days of preparing the package) is entirely manageable.
I’m very happy to finally have a place from which to buy novels and graphic novels and art books that are insanely difficult to procure in Eastern Europe.

I like Total War: Warhammer, don’t you? It’s a great strategy with a fair amount of flaws but a whole lot of awesomeness going for it. At any rate, its sequel is coming soon, and the last core race of the game was announced a few days ago.
It’s rats, people. Rats.
If you don’t know anything about the Skaven, you might like to read this. I did, and came away from this particular feature more interested in playing with ratpeople than I was before!
The Total War: Warhammer II features I’m most excited about are the additions to the early game– exploration plays a much wider part of the game than it did before, and I imagine it’ll add a whole new dimension to our list of reasons for murdering enemy armies!

I’ve been enjoying James Latimer’s blog. His Hidden Gems are like my Thursday Book Recommendations…only better. You should check his latest post; it’s about Villains by Necessity, which I’m pretty damn excited to read thanks to Latimer’s very post.

StarCraft: Remastered is out, and I don’t have time to play it, and I blame my university for it. Who the hell needs Economic Policy, anyway?

The Hugo Awards were…awarded, as often happens with awards, and I have read none of the winners! I’ll go ahead and remedy that, if you don’t mind. Meanwhile, click here to see the authors and pieces of writing that took an award home this year.

 

Those’re some of the bits and pieces that grabbed my attention this last week, I hope you’ll find them interesting! At any rate, hope to see you around next time!