#SO MUCH changed over those 64 years and i’m so curious to know what led to the world of the hunger games we first knew

[hrrystylesbookclub]

also also also also i want to know how the capitol got to a point of such extreme bodily alterations and fashion

in tbosas snow makes a point in mentioning how lucy gray’s little makeup is bold even by capitol standards, which is SO different from the capitol we know where everyday people will dye their skin bright colors on whim, or be lavishly decorated in jewels

[dreamytfw]

I’m bored and impatient again, so I’m answering stuff from an ask game. OP here. I just want to say preemptively that the shipping questions only pertain to me and how I ship or don’t ship them. I don’t care what y’all ship.

1:What is your Supernatural OTP? Destiel.

2:What’s your opinion on John Winchester? I have a lot of strong feelings about that fucking dickhead.

3:Which season finale was your favorite/least favorite? Favorite: season 8′s was really good. Least favorite: season 10. We almost had Dean in space.

4:Which is your favorite episode? Either Changing Channels or The Man Who Would Be King

5:Which episode makes you cry the most? The episode where Ellen and Jo die ALWAYS makes me cry.

6:Which episode is the funniest to you? The Real Ghostbusters

7:What’s your opinion on Megstiel? I’m okay with it up to a point. That point is crazy!Cas.

8:When did you start watching Supernatural? The hiatus between seasons 7 and 8. I finished my Netflix binge something like the day before season 8 premiered.

9:Which episode title do you think is the funniest? The French Mistake. Gotta love Mel Brooks.

10:What’s your opinion on Garth? I loved Garth! Such a massively under-utilized character.

11:If you could bring back any character, would you? If so, whom? I’d like to finally get Adam out of Hell, but I don’t think that’s quite what you’re asking.

12:Who is your favorite angel? Cas. Duh.

13:Who’s your favorite archangel? Gabriel.

14:What’s your opinion on Wincest? Squicks me the fuck out. Sibling incest does in general. Like, we’re not supposed to want to fuck our siblings guys. That’s how we get Joffery and El Hachizado.

15:What’s your opinion on Lisa? (and Ben, if you want) Ben was kind of blah outside of his first episode. I really liked Lisa and how she refused to take any of Dean’s crap.

16:When did you start blogging about Supernatural? Uh... I think I jumped on board right away?

17:Do you think that Chuck is God? How old are these questions???

18:Do you have a favorite Dick (Roman) joke? If so, what is it? Not a joke, but I’m really weirdly amused that his actor does the voice of a recurring minor character in the Kingdom Hearts series.

19:Which is your favorite episode? We had this question before.

20:Who do you ship Sam with? Samena, but I really love fluffy snuggly Samstiel.

21:What’s your opinion on Destiel? OTP

22:Did you like the first or second Ruby better? iunno.

23:Who’s your favorite demon? Demon!Dean deserved a longer arc.

24:Do you read smutty fanfiction? I fucking write smutty fan fiction (I’m just bad at finishing and publishing it).

25:Do you think Destiel will become canon in season 9? (Regardless of whether you want it to or not) Christ this is old. Unfortunately they did not. But fingers crossed for season 14, aka their 10 year anniversary.

26:Have you ever had a dream about Supernatural/the characters/the actors? If so, can you describe what you remember? All the time. I used to be able to lucid dream to some extent, but since I’ve gone off my psych meds I can’t seem to do it as much anymore. The most recent one I had was the other night. I don’t remember it too clearly, but Sam and I said bye to Dean and Cas before heading off on some sort of mission or something.

27:Which episode is the scariest to you? (Horror-movie type scary) That episode where Sam got his throat ripped out this season was the first time Supernatural has actually scared me. Other episodes have been suspenseful, but I was legit scared during those mine scenes.

28:What’s your opinion on Sabriel? I don’t really see it. MAYBE unrequited on Gabriel’s side, but other than that I just don’t get the appeal.

29:Do you think End!verse will happen? If so, are you looking forward to it? Well, Lucifer’s dead now so I’m guessing no. If End!Verse does happen, Dean and Sam’s places are going to be swapped.

30:Do you have any friends off of the Internet that watch Supernatural? Yes.

31:Do any of your family members watch Supernatural? I got my dad and my brother to watch it, but they kind of dropped it. My mom is currently watching it and I regret everything that has led to this point in my life.

32:What’s an unpopular opinion or headcanon you have? The “romantic” subplots in the Scoobynatural episode were gross and the episode would have been better without them.

33:Do you like AU fanfics? DO I!!!!

34:Have you ever written/started writing a fanfic? See my answer to number 24.

35:What’s your opinion on Samifer? That... really depends on the vessel Lucifer is in. See, I’m a fan of selfcest so if I do read Samifer stuff, I always imagine it as Sam basically fucking himself.

36:If you have an OTP, at what point did you start shipping it? First time I watched. Literally that second episode Cas was in when he was standing in the kitchen with Dean and told Dean to show him some respect I was just like “...are they gonna fuck?”

37:Do you think Sam should have completed the demon trials? Nah.

38:Which director/writer is or was your favorite/least favorite? Favorite: I don’t know. I don’t really pay attention to the good writers because I’m too busy enjoying their content. Least favorite: Bucklemming really needs to be fired or relegated to only filler episodes.

39:Which actor would you most like to meet in real life? MISHA!

40:If you could be any character on the show, would you want to? If so, whom? If not, why? Nah. I kind of like being me. I’m the only person I know how to be.

41:Do you prefer cake or pie? Both ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

42:What is your opinion on Sastiel? Is it Samstiel or Sastiel because I just don’t know. I prefer it fluffy. For whatever reason I have trouble getting into smutty Samstiel.

43:Have you ever made a Supernatural reference out loud and received strange looks from some of the people surrounding you? Yes...

44:Have you ever cried over a non-OTP ship from the show? I’m not entirely sure what this question means... Like, have I ever cried over characters in the show that I don’t ship? Yeah. It’s Supernatural.

45:What is your favorite moment from any of the gag reels? “When did you forget how to act?” “Season 2?”

46:Superwholock? Please no.

47:What is/was your favorite Sam hair length? I really liked season 10.

48:What’s an unpopular ship you have? Meg/Bela. Don’t ask, I don’t understand it either.

49:What’s your opinion on Wincestiel? I prefer it as more of a love triangle where Sam and Dean are fighting over Cas’s affection than as a throuple.

50:Can you dig Elvis? Fun fact: I never finished that fan fiction. I loved every moment of it, but I got as far as Dean meeting Adam in Vietnam before I chickened out because I knew there was a bunch more pain on the way.

51:Do you listen to Carry On Wayward Son even when you’re not just watching a finale? I used to, but I’ve since been conditioned to feel pain every time that song starts playing.

52:What’s your opinion on Zachariah? Good antagonist.

53:Do you think Adam will ever get out of the cage? (not as Michael) Not at the rate we’re going.

54:Do you think Sam should have completed the trials? Why are there repeat questions?

55:How long would you survive as a hunter? I wouldn’t.

56:What’s your opinion on Calthazar? Foxhole love/friendly former fwb.

57:Do you have a Netflix account? If so, what’s your username and password? Wait a second, just the first part. I do and I’ve basically just been watching Supernatural on it the past month or so.

58:Have you ever participated in GISHWHES? I did the first year (the one with the pigeon rat mascot). It was fun, but it was stressful to the point where I don’t want to do it again.

59:What movies/shows have you watched because of (or by coincidence) Jared, Jensen, or Misha? Jared: House of Wax... kind of. I turned it off as soon as he got murdered because it was just awful. I also tried watching Gilmore Girls, but I dropped it after two episodes because every character in that show is either a terrible person or blah. The Supernatural Anime. Jensen: My Bloody Valentine, Batman Under the Red Hood. The Supernatural Anime (I know he only voiced the last episode, but he was in it so it counts). THAT ONE EPISODE OF WISHBONE AKA MY CHILDHOOD. Misha: the TSA short films, Karla, NCIS

60:If you could change just one thing about the series, what would it be? I’d make Dean better at using his god damn words.

61:If you were at a Con, what would be a question you would ask?(can be any of the actors) UUUUHHHHHHHH...

62:Why did you start watching Supernatural? Saw it all over tumblr. Got curious. It’s all been downhill from there.

63:What’s your opinion on Sam/Crowley? That’s a thing??

64:What’s your biggest fear for season 9? I honestly don’t remember what it was.

65:What’s your favorite (or at least a memorable) pop culture reference that has been made on the show? Them referencing themselves is always pretty great.

66:Just a random confession you have regarding the show/Asker makes up their own question.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 20/03/2021 (Central Cee, KSI/YUNGBLUD/Polo G)

On the tenth week that a song appears on the UK Singles Chart, it becomes likely that it has a cut to its streaming numbers by the Official Charts Company, particularly if it’s still in the top 10 and especially if it’s #1. So, the streaming and sales do not change, but the Official Charts Company just weighs them differently. This means that it’s often that songs reliant on streaming – read: most of the chart given that the UK doesn’t factor in radio – drop intensely on that particular week. Therefore, we switched out our Pokémon and “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo has been replaced at #1 after nine weeks by “Wellerman”, an 1800s sea shanty from New Zealand covered by Nathan Evans and remixed as a pop-house song by 220 KID and Billen Ted. Of course. I don’t know all of the complexities behind this rule but I do know it shakes up the chart at the cost of it being ridiculously inaccurate – I do think “drivers license” is probably still the biggest song in the country. “drivers license” is at #18 now, by the way. Yikes. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

We have a pretty interesting week, to say the least, but before all that, we can get through this brief rundown as always as we cover the UK Top 75 and all of what’s happening over there, since that’s what I cover. First of all, we do have some big drop-outs, like #1 hits “Roses” by SAINt JHN and remixed by Imanbek that seemingly had its second wind pummelled this week, and “positions” by Ariana Grande leaving somewhat prematurely. We also have “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers retreating to the other 25 slots I don’t cover because, well, of course, as well as “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus and sadly, “Be the One” by Rudimental featuring MORGAN, TIKE and Digga D, but that’s all for the notable drops out of the chart. Still falling within the chart other than the aforementioned “drivers license” are... basically all of the Drake songs from last week falling behind the top 10 and even the top 20, and two of them being behind “Leave the Door Open” now – thankfully. “What’s Next” is at #20, “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” featuring Rick Ross is at #25 and “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is at #28. We also have a handful of other notable fallers like “WITHOUT YOU” by the Kid LAROI at #27, “Hold On” by Justin Bieber off of the debut at #31 (could rebound next week when the album makes its impact), “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy at #35, “Anxious” by AJ Tracey off of the debut to #45, “Anyone” by Justin Bieber at #49, “Medicine” by James Arthur at #54, “Bluuwuu” by Digga D at #57, “34+35” by Ariana Grande at #58, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I at #60, “Toxic” by Digga D at #61, “Good Days” by SZA at #64, “Whoopty” by CJ at #65, “Prisoner” by Miley Cyrus featuring Dua Lipa at #66, “Afterglow” by Ed Sheeran at #68, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental at #69, “you broke me first” by Tate McRae at #71 and finally, “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV at #75. I hope that next week is the last time I need to say “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV, not because the song is bad but that is a convoluted credit if I’ve ever seen one. In terms of gains and returning entries, it does get interesting. The only return is for “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles at #67, but our gains include “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #56, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Given at #42 thanks to the video, “Ferrari Horses” by D-Block Europe featuring RAYE at #36 off of the debut, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #32, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man at #29, “Astronaut in the Ocean” by Masked Wolf at #24, “Let’s Go Home Together” by Ella Henderson and Tom Grennan at #21, “Little Bit of Love” also by Grennan at #13, “Streets” by Doja Cat at #12 thanks to the video and three songs making their first entry into the top 10 after picking up the pace on the charts recently: “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee at #9 thanks to his album, “BED” by Joel Corry, RAYE and David Guetta at #8 and finally, to my dismay, “Latest Trends” by A1 x J1 at #2 thanks to a remix featuring Aitch. Sigh, okay, well, we have a... curious selection of new arrivals so let’s start with that.

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 – “You’ve Done Enough” – Gorgon City and DRAMA

Produced by Gorgon City and DRAMA

Gorgon City are a British EDM duo who were particularly big back in 2014 or so when they had their top 10 hits, particularly “Ready for Your Love”, which peaked at #4, but they haven’t really had much success since in the UK or Europe in general. This time, however, they’ve clinched a spot in the top 75 by collaborating with DRAMA, another electronic duo except they’re from Chicago instead of north London and the vocalist here, Via Rosa, is actually from DRAMA and not some uncredited session vocalist or a sample, which surprised me because the vocals here are genuinely great and remind me a lot of these booming diva voices used so commonly in 90s house. In fact, I think this whole song is genuinely great, relying on a house groove that is pretty damn funky and some subtle keys making the foundation for a bouncy four-on-the-floor beat, with the shaky percussion just adding the spice on top of it. It helps that this chorus is pretty ethereal, with Rosa’s vocals booming over this angelic synth blend before a pretty ugly-sounding drop but that is absolutely on purpose, as the content here is about that struggle between trying to find someone and trying to better yourself so you feel like you’d be worthwhile to anyone you end up meeting, which is kind of a depressing cycle in many ways... not that I’ve experienced that, but it sounds like it warrants the DRAMA here. There are tons of intricacies in the productions here too that make the song a lot more complete, particularly in the vocal production and all the intrusive bass wobbles by the second chorus and drop, so, yeah, for once, the generic house tune debuting low on the chart is a pretty great one. I wish it went somewhere further so it sounded like an actual song but as is, without a real bridge, this is still a good, almost anthemic dance track.

#70 – “Rasputin” – Majestic and Boney M.

Produced by Majestic and Frank Farian

Boney M. are a pretty legendary disco group collected by producer Frank Farian of several Caribbean singers to make some of the most fun pop music of the 70s. One of the most interesting things about this band were the fact that they were immensely popular in the Soviet Union back when that existed, and some Soviet films even show their songs playing during high-ranking Soviet government meetings, which sounds like pure comedy. Funnily enough, “Rasputin” was the only song Boney M. were forbidden to play in the USSR, even though it was still a big hit there. The 1978 song, a #2 hit for the band in the UK, basically retells the story that led to infamous and fascinating Tsarist Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin being assassinated, with most claims in the song itself being true or at least as far as we know, although the song does mostly focus on how much of a womaniser he was. The original hit is equally fascinating as the guy himself, with a great typical disco sound, those iconic strings and the use of Russian instrument balalaikas in its mix just furthering that intrigue. Now, in 2021, the song became a hit on TikTok because... of course, and now this remix by a DJ and producer called Majestic, is charting on the UK Singles Chart. Why this remix and not the original song? Well, this is basically a French house remix of the song, using those house patterns not too dissimilar to Daft Punk or Stardust-type stuff, which makes perfect sense to remix a classic disco tune. I do prefer the original track about “Russia’s greatest love machine”, because it’s a lot more natural and the remix is kind of poorly done in some places if I’m being honest, but if this is how kids decide to experience this type of classic disco, I’m not going to complain. It’s a good song; I’m interested to see how this second chart run goes.

#53 – “DAYWALKER!” – Machine Gun Kelly featuring CORPSE

Produced by BaseXX, Machine Gun Kelly and SlimXX

Nope. No, no, no. I refuse. I’m completely fine with bringing pop-punk and post-hardcore stuff back, but if the ringleader is Machine Gun Kelly and he’s bringing out Corpse Husband to help him on this trap-metal garbage, I’m not even going to acknowledge it further than the fact that it exists and it’s probably not in MGK’s best interests to compare himself to Capitol Hill rioters. Otherwise, absolutely not. Nope. Not even going to give this the time of day.

#46 – “Addicted” – Jorja Smith

Produced by Compass

In stark contrast, here we have Jorja Smith’s new single to add to that confusing sophomore album roll-out that I feel has been delaying itself for two years now. This new song is about giving your all to a relationship and not having it reciprocated, but she paints this in a very odd way, painting herself as “too selfless” to leave and that her partner should be “addicted” to her, which seems like the wrong way to go about writing this entirely, especially if this instrumental is going to be the dullest blend of checked-out live percussion and a boring electric guitar loop, and Jorja Smith’s not going to sell this in a different way to how she sells her other songs, going for a subtle croon that just doesn’t make sense for a song where we’re clearly not supposed to think Jorja’s in the right for being this obsessive and somewhat hyperbolic about this relationship not going the way she planned. I could see this being done really well but the song is too weak and flimsy as is to grasp how to handle the content and I’m sorry but it just does not work for me.

#44 – “Day in the Life” – Central Cee

Produced by Frosty Beats

Central Cee released his debut mixtape, Wild West and, listen, there was a point to me not saying much about “DAYWALKER!” so I think Central Cee existing and giving me so little to work with will weaken that point even further. To be fair, I like the choir sample in this beat, even if the drop is going to be really awkwardly staggered by a loose 808 for no reason, and this drill beat never really feels like it keeps up with itself, especially because Central Cee might be the least interesting rapper in a crop of already desperate British rappers. He also says that rappers that use Auto-Tune don’t “really rap” or “really trap”, which is awkward considering some of this guy’s back catalogue, and also incredibly untrue. He also disses D-Block Europe pretty directly which, regardless of who it’s from or how famous DBE continue to get, always feels like punting down, so, yeah, this is worthless.

#43 – “On the Ground” – ROSÉ

Produced by 24, Jon Bellion, Ojivolta and Jordgen Odegard

This is the debut solo single from ROSÉ, one of the singers from K-pop group BLACKPINK, which explains my initial confusion to why this was so high. The label has enlisted Jon Bellion of all people to produce as they intend to push ROSÉ as a global hit-maker in her own right, given that this is part of a two-track EP so that if one track doesn’t do as well, fans could gravitate to another and that becomes the hit. See “Havana” or, really, how Drake releases his singles nowadays. Looking at some of her television appearances and the language surrounding that, it seems like they’ve been trying to push her as a soloist for a while, and given that she broke PSY’s record for most-viewed solo South Korean video in 24 hours with this song, I think it’s a success. Is the song itself any good? Well, to my surprise, it’s all in English. It now sits at 100 million views and really, there’s no way to distinguish that this is from Korea... which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, because the song is great, relying on this slick electric guitar pluck and ROSÉ’s vocals which, despite being drenched in reverb, sound really great, before the whole song is abruptly plunged into this distorted, bassy electro-pop void which is just a fascinating and kind of avant-garde choice for a pop song like this. The song doesn’t really develop further than that, pretty much repeating its own structure, but that drop with all the spliced-in backing vocals, is such an interesting catharsis itself that I think it makes up for that. The final drop does a lot different as well, going for a lead synth melody on the top of the mix that again sounds really great when paired with that mix and then the rising strings. I was tempted to write this song’s quirks off as shoddy K-pop songwriting but given the credits, especially Jon Bellion, I’m confident all of this nonsense is absolutely on purpose, and I love it. Check it out, I hope this becomes a hit outside of this debut week, although I really don’t think that’ll happen given it’s (ostensibly) a K-pop song and their western success is largely dominant on sales from fans. Regardless, I’m glad it debuted here in the first place as I wouldn’t have heard it otherwise.

#16 – “6 for 6” – Central Cee

Produced by Okami202, Sevon and Young Chencs

This is Cee’s sixth song to hit the chart, and hence he’s going “six for six”, even though only two of those singles were actually poised to stick around in any shape or form. He does seem to be going somewhere with this, particularly the direction I thought “Loading” would be going, as it uses a choir sample as the background to this janky UK drill beat... but it’s soon drowned-out and Cee himself is such a non-presence that it’s not worth paying attention to the guy’s content, let alone his lyrics which seem to try and be somewhat introspective about his drug-dealing and gang violence, but end up being incredibly shallow and not really saying anything, about as shallow as this instrumental. The outro would be a pretty nice piano interlude if it didn’t stop so abruptly and I’ve only got to hope that leads into a track on the album and isn’t just a mistake, because I’m not listening to that mixtape if my life depended on it. Another snooze from Central Cee, what a surprise.

#3 – “Patience” – KSI featuring YUNGBLUD and Polo G

Produced by Matt Schwartz

Remember when I said we had three songs making their first entry into the top 10? Yeah, turns out that I’m a compulsive liar since we actually have a fourth at #3, and I’m tempted to nope my way out of this one as well. What’s with this week and whiny, wannabe pop-punk singers collaborating with obnoxious YouTubers? I feel like I’m too old to cover this stuff every other week, and that’s saying something considering KSI himself is pushing 30 at this point, but regardless, I have to check out the song and to my surprise, it’s actually kind of decent. It goes for an 80s synth-rock vibe, with massive guitar tones and obviously not live drums that kind of undercut the pretty great bass groove here, but man, Polo G sounds surprisingly good on this production. His verse is pretty infectious, even if it ends up crushed at the end by YUNGBLUD’s hook, which sounds the least insufferable this guy has ever been, probably because of how the vocal production keeps him slightly in check. KSI himself might be the weakest link as he cannot sing at all, and the Auto-Tune in his verse is not helping, but I do like his David Bowie-interpolating ad-libs on the choruses (Yes, seriously). The bridge is a pathetic excuse of a bridge and the song’s mostly chorus – I’m kind of worried about KSI as a hit-maker going forward if he’s going to consistently contribute so little to his own singles, most of which have two other people on. I mean, it works as a short, inoffensive pop-rock song and not much else. I really wish this was Polo G’s song, actually, I think he deserves a second verse here.

Conclusion

Well, that week happened, that’s for sure. I’m going to give Best of the Week to the obvious outlier here, “On the Ground” by ROSÉ, but not without an Honourable Mention to Gorgon City and DRAMA for “You’ve Done Enough”. Worst of the Week is also going to the obvious outlier, “DAYWALKER!” by Machine Gun Kelly featuring Corpse Husband. Can I give a song I literally refused to review Worst of the Week? Yes, yes, I can. For Dishonourable Mention, just pick your Central Cee-flavoured poison. Here’s this week’s top 10:

I’ll see you next week for... Justin Bieber and Lana Del Rey. Damn, maybe I won’t see you next week.

[writing-in-riverdale]

say something | archie andrews x reader

request

written by: kelly

edited by: @jugheadxresderinyourhead

anonymous said: hi ! here’s your character and number(s) : archie andrews , 63,64,66,77 :)

prompt: 63- “you left without saying goodbye.. i hate you for that” 64- “i loved you and then you were gone.. and i knew i’d lost you” 66- “please say something” 77- “i can’t.. i can’t loose you”

chapter song: all about you / birdy

✘

the day that i was sent away was the hardest day of my life to date. a scared 16 year old girl, pregnant with the baby of riverdales small town hero. archie was my dream guy. 

he had always been the one boy that i had a crush on consistantly throughout my life. one day he showed some interest back and that was it.

 we were together and inseperable. 

the night that i lost my virginity to archie was the start of a snowball affect. it sealed our passion for one another and also left me pregnant.

did archie know? no, he didn’t. was i going to tell him? yes eventually. just not now. 

my parents were shocked when i told them, they were local lawyers and active members of the church so as you can imagine, they weren’t happy. the plan was to send me to a home for un-wed mothers. i made it clear that the baby was going to stay with me, and they respected that. 

on one term.

 i left for the duration of my pregnancy and when i returned, the baby would be made out to be my orphaned cousin who my parents “adopted”. 

and after a week of paprerwork, i was gone. i wasn’t allowed to talk to any of my friends, i wasn’t allowed to tell archie, i wasn’t allowed to even tell my older brother who was in college at the time. it was our own personal deep, dark secret.

✘

over the last 8 months, i’ve developed into a mother. i gave birth to my daughter a week ago, and i’ve never felt better. bettys sister polly was here too. she is pregnant at the moment with jasons baby. what a shame. shes been helping me with my little girl, she’s also been helping me figure out what im gonna say when i get home. 

“you know that betty will be a great babysitter.” polly stated, trimming the roses.

“betty will be a great mom one day.” i reply, smiling while i remember my best friend who i miss dearly.

the baby starts to fuss, so i sit down in the garden and begin to feed her. 

“does it hurt?” polly asked, curious about the breastfeeding.

“at first it does, butonce you get used to it its super natural and relaxing. shes getting what she needs from me.” i clarified.

there was a blissful silence in the garden. i loved being here with my little princess. 

“have you got a name for her yet?” 

“i have a few that i like, im not sure which one i want for her yet.” i answer, trying to think of a better excuse for not naming her yet. its just that i dont feel any of the names that have been suggested thus far arent good enough for her.

the moment of blissfulness was about to end. and so was my trail of lies.

from the courtyard, i catch a glimpse of betty and jughead. they were running past all of the nuns to get to the rose garden. it was comotion, people were shouting as the pair of them start calling out for polly. 

i knew they were looking for her but i didn’t think that it was going to ever lead to them being here, while im here. feeding my baby, that they don’t know exists.

i see betty hug polly, and that brings a massive smile to my face. and while they were having a sweet reunion, jughead looks over at me. his eyes almost pop right out of his head. he turns a ghostly shade of white. 

“betty..” juggie says, stepping back. 

“whats up-” she was stopped mid-sentence. she too, had the same deer in the headlights look. 

“y/n?” she says looking down, at the pink blanket draped over my shoulder.

“hi guys.” i mutter, smiling softly.

the tension could of been cut like butter. it was dead quiet, confusion and shock filling up the atmosphere around us. now it was time for me to explain.

✘

“so the baby is archies?” betty enquired, her arm around my shoulder.

“yes. 100 percent.” i reply, looking down at my little girl.

“and your parents took you here, so that people would think you had gone to live with your brother while they were adopting the baby?” jughead recalled while stroking her little hand with his thumb.

“again, yes. i wanted to leave this place at first but i love it here now.” i state, looking around at the old building with lush gardens and wild flowers.

“we need to get you home, the both of you.” betty insists, getting up and dusting her skirt off. 

and with that the plan was hatched. myself and polly were to pack our stuff and betty would pick us up at midnight. 

and so she did. she came in archies truck, which she borrowed and we drove off into the night. i was longing for him. 

✘

we arrived at bettys grandmas house. it usually sat empty because her grandma was always overseas. she had set it up for myself and polly to stay in while they where figuring out what to do next. 

betty has made us some tea, we were sitting on the sofa exhausted from the crazy escape.

“jugheads staying at archies.” she said quietly, pursing her lips as if the words were forbidden.

“he’s better off at the andrews’ house.” i insisted, pretending like i didn’t even care that she mentioned archies name. 

the night was coming to an end, i settled down in a spare room and i fell asleep.

  ✘

the next morning i had decided to do something completely and utterly stupid. i was going to go and see archie. i needed to tell him that i was back and that i was the mother of his child. 

i was always one to act on impulse, thats what led me to be where i am in my life.

i got into a pair of jeans and a loose white shirt, put my hair up into a ponytail and got a diaper bag ready for the baby. we were about to leave when betty see’s me heading out the door.

“where are you going?” she asks, leaning against the doorway.

“i need to do it today bets, i can’t be here and not see him.” 

“lets go then.” she expresses, grabbing her car keys and heading off in front of me. no questions asked. 

“betty, the baby?” i ask, holding heer car seat.

“bring her with, i’ll watch her while you speak to him.” she suggests.

what am i doing? is this really going to happen? i feel sick. 

✘

as i walk into the auditorium at riverdale high, i feel this urge to crack a smile. as much as i used to hate it here, i’ve missed this place. 

it was always nice coming in and being a kid. i’ve had to acknowledge that archie wont be happy to see me. i know him well enough to establish that the boy has issues with people leaving him. 

i walk into the football locker room and head straight to his locker. i can see him standing there, texting someone. i stand awkwardly trying to say something but its like my voice disapeared.

 i take a sharp breath, trying to get some more confidencence to talk but im just numb. he’s so beautiful and as i see him standing there i remember looking at my baby. she has his eyes. those beautiful eyes.

and then i see him put something back into his locker and he quickly glances over at me and looks back. then it was like reality had stopped, he stared into his locker, trying to comprehend if his brain was decieving him. 

it wasn’t.

i was there.

he looked back at me, this time for longer. he had scanned my body. he knew something was different, i could tell.

“hey arch.” i mutter. pressing my foot against the concrete.

he just continued to stare at me. not a peep. 

“please...say something..” i stutter, trying to comprehend what he is thinking. 

“thats the thing-” he says looking up at me.

“i don’t know what to say..” he continued, placing his left hand throigh his thick hair.

the silence was deadly. you could hear the white noise.

almost in the same moment that silence was shattered by him slamming his fist against the metal locker.

he was impulsive, like me.

“FUCK” he raged, scaring the shit out of me.

my breathing picks up, i close me eyes. i felt his pain. 

“what the fuck y/n? you leave and then..oh shit.” he sits down, overwhelemed by the situation. 

“arch i can explain..” i say walking over to him. 

“explain what? you left without saying goodbye..and i hate you for that.” he spits, looking at me dead in the eyes. 

and with that, it felt like my whole world had stopped. i was almost winded by that word. hate. had it really gone that far?

“i loved you so much too.” he continues. 

“like i had so much love for you and you didn’t take that seriously.” he sneered.

“i cant loose you..” i croaked.

“well you should of thought about that before you left me without saing anything. god, you really dont get it. i loved you and then you were gone.. and i knew that i had lost you.” he confessed.

“I didn’t leave because i wanted to, i had to.” i snapped.

“you left because you’re selfish.” he interupted.

“i left because i was pregnant.” i corrected him.

and then the white noise returned. he looks at me and all of a sudden it clicked in his mind. thats why i looked different. thats why i had changed and thats why i had left. he looks around the room, as if his reality was slipping. 

“you had a b-” he stops to breath.

the look on his face was priceless.

“you had a baby?” he stammered, obviously shocked.

“i had our baby. i had to leave arch, i didn’t have a choice and i couldn’t tell you.”

he uses his hands to rub his face, tears forming very slowly in his eyes.

“i’m not mad.” he admits, looking down at his feet.

“i know.” i answer.

“i’m hurt or i was hurt. i don’t know-” he was interupted by a cry.

i see betty rush into the locker room with the stroller.

“i think she’s hungry.” betty whispers, looking at a gobsmacked archie.

“she?” he asked looking up.

i go towards to stroller, grabbing the baby. and lifting her up. 

“i want to hold her.”  he stands up, marching towards me. 

i look down at her, she wasn’t hungry. she was fussy.

archie comes around and looks down at her face. i could feel him almost melt. 

“she is so beautiful.” he says in awe.

“she looks just like y/n.” betty mentions with a smile ever present on her face.

“she does.” he agrees.

“she has your eyes arch.” i smile, gushing over this gorgeous child that i had a part in creating.

i turn around and i hand the baby to archie, proudly.

“have you named her?” he asks, looking up at me.

“i have a name in mind.” i reply.

“and?” betty questions.

“well my grandma’s name was ivy and archies grandmas name was belle, so i was thinking-”

“ivy belle.” he says cutting me off abruptley.

“oh thats so sweet.” betty whines, pulling her bottom lip out. 

“ivy belle andrews.” i purred.

archie looked at me and without any hesitation,

“im her dad.” he smiles.

✘

and in a moment, a hostile environment can be turned into a memory forever fuelled by love. 

archie and i got married when he graduated high school. he was working with his dad, and also writing and producing music on the side.

we had little miss ivy belle, and shortly after our wedding we welcomed a little cheeky little ginger haired boy named freddie forsythe. 

the teenage girl who was once pregnant and scared is now happily married, a mother of two and a journalist at the riverdale register. i never thought that my pregancy would of lead to my happily ever after, but it did.

✘ 

tag list: @hauntedcherryblossombanana-blog @sadbreakfastclb @jugandbettsdetectiveagency @fragilefrances @onceuponagladerhead  @natalieroseg @mhysaofdrxgons @hiimalyssawriter @kindflowerwelove

[evanvanness]

Annotated edition for the May 31, 2020, Week in Ethereum News

Here’s the most clicked for the week:

I think the Societe Generale bond issuance paying Banque de France with a CBDC digital euro hadn’t been hyped at all, hence why it led the list.  In fact, I don’t think anyone had noticed the press release until Julien Bouteloup tweeted it a week after it had gone out.

Given France’s history protecting domestic industry, you would expect Tezos to be getting these projects due its (probably inaccurate) reputation as being a French project.  And I bet Tezos will get some involvement in the future from the French government linked projects, but it’s still notable that these things are still on Ethereum when Tezos has been live for nearly 2 years (though with very little use).

Meanwhile, alongside yesterday’s announcements of Starkware and OMG, Vitalik tweeted that “initial deployment of ethereum's layer 2 scaling strategy has *basically* succeeded.”   That’s not wrong, but it’s prone to misinterpretation.

The history of layer2 in blockchain is not a particularly successful one.  I’d argue that the question isn’t whether it works, per se, but can it work in a way that gets users over the long haul.  Sure, we’re starting to see that (loopring is live with a million trades on its rollup!) - and we appear to be on the verge of real apps running on layer2 - but there’s a long history in Bitcoin and Ethereum of unrealistic expectations for layer2.  

Here’s the high-level things for Eth holders reads:

8 things you should consider before staking

Devcon6 will be in Bogota in 2021

Liquidity mining: now you earn Balancer tokens for supplying liquidity or Compound tokens for supplying/borrowing

Lots of folks are considering whether to stake, how much to stake, whether to use a staking service, etc etc.  Cayman’s post was a pretty good primer on these questions.   Eth2 staking will lock your ETH up for awhile.  The return is likely to be quite good, though as more people lock up ETH, the return declines.  So it’s hard to say exactly what the return will be - and you won’t be liquid for a long while.

Eth2′s beacon chain is designed for decentralization, with penalties for being offline or doing something wrong (eg, double signing) going up exponentially if they are part of an attack (”correlated”).

That is to say, you should be totally fine staking at home even with mediocre residential connection - going offline usually just means you miss rewards.  And even if you go offline when AWS goes down, as long as you bring your connection back up quickly, you should be relatively ok.    

Staking services should professionalize the staking in ways that ameliorate some risks but which might provide hidden risk if they don’t make sure to think about the risks.   Do they do their staking in the cloud, especially something like AWS east?  Do they spread across different clients?  How much of a honey pot are they?  

Meanwhile, Devcon will be in Colombia but postponed until next year.

Finally, of my 3 high level articles to read: liquidity mining.  DeFi apps like Balancer and Compound are decentralizing themselves by giving tokens to their users, to bootstrap the things the network needs to be example.  By no means are these the first examples of giving away tokens to users, but these are 2 notable examples of a trend to keep an eye on.

Now for the annotations.  A few sections I don’t have anything to add: 

Eth1

Latest core devs call, discussion of EIPs for inclusion in Berlin hard fork, whether or not to include 2046 (static call to precompile gas reduction) and 2565 (modexp reprice). Working toward an ephemeral testnet for Berlin.

Latest fee market change (1559) call. Notes from the EIP1559 call

Discussion thread on meta transactions, oil, opcode repricing

Snap sync mainnet benchmarking, single peer on AWS

I basically say the same thing in this section every week.   People are implementing the EIPs and figuring out which ones will be ready to go for Berlin.  EIP1559 will not be ready until the hard fork after Berlin.  Then in the longer-term, there’s lots of work on Stateless Ethereum (or the non-preferred nomenclature: 1.x 🤮) and that’s in discussion.  

And then Peter is working on a new sync (formerly known as leaf sync) which seems to cut bandwidth way way down.

Eth2

Latest what’s new in eth2, features a Schlesi testnet postmortem

The new multi-client testnet is Witti. Here’s a guide to staking

Latest eth2 implementer call. Notes from Ben and Mamy

Cross-shard transaction simulation

8 things you should consider before staking

RocketPool is going to wrap the ETH locked up in Eth2 staking, thus giving liquidity to eth2 stakers

New multi-client testnet.  They’re basically going to spin them up, try to break them, and not worry about rescuing them if they go down, since you can spin a new one up.  This one is called Witti.

RocketPool deciding to tokenize the 32staked eth is interesting.  It’s basically inevitable - anything that can get wrapped, eventually will get wrapped.  This may end up being the decentralized way to get liquidity for your staked ETH if plans change and you decide you need liquidity for your 32 staked ETH.  There will almost certainly be centralized ways - exchanges eventually offer staking and let you trade IOUs.  Of course, that depends on how much you trust the exchange.

Layer2

Raiden v1 is live on mainnet for DAI and WETH, with some token limits

Deconstructing a state channel app and how a dev interacts with a state channel wallet

A zk-rollups to scale blockchain explainer

Understanding optimistic rollups by building one

Dharma and Interstate open source their Tiramisu optimistic rollup for token transfers

Raiden shipped with the training wheels on!  

Not much else to say around layer2 besides what I said above.  Gotta get users.

This newsletter is made possible by Chainlink!

Connect your smart contract to decentralized oracles that provide the most tamper-proof and accurate market price data, as well as on-chain verifiable randomness that’s provably fair.

Stuff for developers

Array slices in Solidity v0.6

Truffle v5.1.27 – debugger support for Solidity inline assembly

Upgradeable contracts using diamond standard

web3j now includes abi v2

Typescript types for Solidity AST

i18n translation strings for Defi, available as npm package

Build your first Harberger tax app tutorial

eth95: retro UI for calling contract functions

secp256k1 twist attacks

BLS12-381 pairing-friendly curve in JavaScript, now with hash-to-curve v7 and 50 pairings/sec

Ecosystem

Devcon6 will be in Bogota in 2021

All the projects from EthGlobal’s Hack Money

A surprising 120 submissions for Hack Money!

I’m not surprised Devcon got pushed to 2021, but I am disappointed.   I’d like to see a prediction market on when the next ETH event is which has more than ~400 attendees.  

We’re also getting out of the spring conference season (note for southern hemisphere readers: sorry, I know it’s fall for you), so I’m curious whether we’ll see online conferences continue to pop up for every day of the week.  I suspect not, but it is open real estate at the moment.

Enterprise

First Central Bank Digital Currency public blockchain transaction is on Ethereum: Societe General issued €40m of covered bonds as security tokens and paid with Banque de France digital euros. While the press release does not make it clear, the transaction was on Ethereum mainnet

It actually took me the better part of an hour to find the link that confirmed that this was on Eth mainnet.

DAOs and Standards

Summoning the spirit of DAO ops

ERC2680: eth2 standard wallet layout and naming format

ERC2678: EthPM v3

EIP2681: Limit account nonce to 2^64-1

EIP2677: Limit initcode size

Application layer

Enjin plugin for Minecraft to tokenize Minecraft items on your server

Umbra: stealth payments to ENS names, running on Ropsten testnet

How does NexusMutual become an efficient version of Lloyd’s of London?

Maker’s Oasis now makes it easy to leverage up with ETH

DeFi777 – wrap your erc20 tokens as erc777 tokens, then swap through ENS names

RenVM brings BTC, BCH, and ZEC to Ethereum as ERC20 tokens

Mstable basket of stablecoins live on mainnet, includes yield from Compound/Aave plus swap fees – there’s a zero slippage stablecoin trade with 30 basis points of fees

Centrifuge’s Tinlake asset factoring is on mainnet, with factoring for freight shipping and Spotify payments

4/8 arbitrarily classified as DeFi this week.

Zero slippage stablecoin trade is an interesting approach - of course, as a liquidity provider, you’re assuming those stablecoins stay stable.  As a user, you want tiny slippage and tiny fees for going between two things that are supposed to represent the same value.   As a liquidity provider you want as much fees as possible, especially since you’re assuming the risk of pegs slipping or being broken.

Also just wait until Centrifuge’s factoring gets pushed as collateral for Maker.  I’m curious what the response will be - or is it hohum since some trusted assets have already been added?

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Liquidity mining: now you earn Balancer tokens for supplying liquidity or Compound tokens for supplying/borrowing

Zap your liquidity around in one transaction

Ryan Sean Adams: Eth is doubly undervalued

Gavin Andresen: crypto markets take a long time to reflect reality

People seem to call it maximalism these days when you point out that anything is overvalued, but I thought Gavin’s post was a concise reflection of the irrationality of crypto markets.

General

LadderLeak and ECDSA explainer

Hundreds of thousands of Thai users switching to Minds, a Twitter/Facebook hybrid social network incentivized through an ERC20 token

I checked out Minds.  They did a token sale two years ago, though you can still buy it on their site now.  It’s an interesting concept, you can get paid to post, except you have to pay to be a paid member first.  I couldn’t quite work out what the incentives were for me, but social networks need to get traction in one niche and then expand, and it seems like they may be getting that in Thailand.  I’d like to see more social network attempts using tokenized incentives.

Housekeeping

Follow me on Twitter @evan_van_ness to get the annotated edition of this newsletter on Monday or Tuesday. Plus I tweet most of what makes it into the newsletter.

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Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-may-31-2020/

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):

June 1-6 – DAO Rush Week

June 3 – BlockVigil’s free remote developer bootcamp begins

June 16 – deadline to apply for Gitcoin’s Kernel incubator

Oct 2-Oct 30 – EthOnline hackathon

[junker-town]

How UConn football’s throwback hire of Randy Edsall can work ... eventually

The prodigal Husky’s list of tasks is relatively simple, if not easy.

This preview was originally published April 18 and has since been updated.

I pride myself on how many different stats, rates, and angles I can produce from simple lines of play-by-play data, but sometimes you don’t need a ton of numbers to learn all you need to know about a team.

Take UConn, for instance. All you need to know about the 2016 Connecticut Huskies boils down to the number 9.

On October 15, Bobby Puyol kicked a 26-yard field goal 7:56 into the game to give UConn a 3-0 lead on USF.

A week later, Puyol kicked field goals of 22 and 33 yards in the first 12 minutes against UCF.

In 12 games, those are the nine first-quarter points the Huskies scored.

NINE. Nine points! In the equivalent of three full games!

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that UConn didn’t end up with the worst Off. S&P+ rating in the country. Texas State’s managed to grade out worse. Or maybe the biggest surprise is that, with the second-worst offense in the country and a first-quarter deficit in almost every game, the Huskies still managed to win three games.

After breaking through with a six-win season in 2015 (despite an offense that ranked 115th), Bob Diaco’s Huskies lost any semblance of momentum. The offense plummeted back to 2014 levels, and the defense crumpled. Any first-quarter deficit was virtually impossible to overcome. And in a single year, Diaco went from dragging the program forward to looking for a new job.

Since losing Edsall to Maryland in 2010, UConn lost its way. The school tried the “veteran coach who knows the Northeast” route and brought in Syracuse legend Paul Pasqualoni to keep Edsall’s eight-wins-a-year ship moving. He went 10-18. So the school went with the “hire a major program’s star coordinator” approach, and Diaco went 11-26, with more than half of his wins coming in a single year.

UConn has proved it can put a good defense on the field; the Huskies have ranked in the Def. S&P+ top 50 seven times in the last 10 years and three times in the six since Edsall’s departure. They got as high as 18th under Pasqualoni and 32nd under Diaco.

Meanwhile, the Huskies have also proved offense is really hard. They have not topped 105th in Off. S&P+ since Edsall left, and even in Edsall’s last six years, they ranked higher than 68th just once.

Without an ideal new hire available, the school decided to start over. UConn only once ranked better than 47th overall in S&P+ under Edsall, but 47th is better than anything that happened since he left. Edsall, fired from Maryland a year earlier, was available. It was time to get the band back together.

I’m not a big fan of a recycling hire and gave UConn a C+ last December, but I’ll say this: while the hire might reek of living in the past, Edsall is not. He made an exciting pair of coordinator hires, bringing in Villanova’s aggressive, creative Billy Crocker to run his defense and asking former Auburn play-caller Rhett Lashlee to figure out how to score points.

Granted, Edsall also brought former UConn QB Dan Orlovsky back to fill the nostalgia quotient, but he wants his new Huskies to be fast and (gasp) modern. Consider me intrigued.

Of course, if this experiment fails, we’ll all be writing something condescending about old dogs learning new tricks. At Edsall’s peak, UConn wasn’t the most exciting team in the world.

Plus, it’s going to take a little while for these chess pieces to do what Edsall and company want. UConn has experience at quarterback and in the defensive front six/seven, and there are a couple of viable pieces in the skill corps. Still, when you had the second-worst offense in the country, you can improve quite a bit and still be bad.

Setting the bar low and assuming a Year Zero situation is probably apt, but there does appear to be potential. And the fact that Edsall doesn’t seem to be trying to reset the clock to 2009 is a good sign.

The first time UConn hired Edsall, he was a 40-year-old with just one year of coordinator experience. It worked; he led the Huskies to FBS and, after a couple of years of toil, produced a consistently decent product in the Big East.

This time, UConn is getting a 58-year-old with 17 years of head coaching experience and a good knowledge of what the job entails. You can see the draw. We just don’t know if we’ll see the results.

2016 in review

2016 UConn statistical profile.

Even with the first-quarter troubles, UConn wasn’t completely awful at the start of 2016. The Huskies started 3-3 with wins over Virginia and Cincinnati and tight losses to Navy and Syracuse.

Things went haywire late, though. Quarterback Bryant Shirreffs, battling injury all year, lost his job to true freshman Donovan Williams after a 41-3 debacle against a bad ECU. UConn got outscored by a combined 89-13 over the final three games. The Huskies went from bad to horrendous.

First 8 games (3-5): Avg. percentile performance: 30% (~top 90) | Avg. yards per play: Opp 5.9, UConn 5.1 (minus-0.8) | Avg. score: Opp 26, UConn 20 (minus-6)

Last 4 games (0-4): Avg. percentile performance: 5% (~bottom 10) | Avg. yards per play: Opp 5.5, UConn 4.1 (minus-1.4) | Avg. score: Opp 33, UConn 4 (minus-29)

It was a curious decision; Williams completed 47 percent of his passes with one touchdown, five interceptions, and 12 sacks. In a small sample, even averaging 5.6 yards per (non-sack) carry, he graded out as maybe the least effective QB in FBS. Burning a redshirt to play a guy for three games is questionable enough already, but this was downright strange.

Of course, it could have been a sign of mercy. Shirreffs was hurt all season and had taken 23 sacks.

Regardless, a full month after the season ended, UConn athletic director David Benedict decided to let Diaco go after initially deciding the opposite. Evidently he wasn’t satisfied with Diaco’s plans for fixing the offense.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

The less said about UConn’s 2016 offense, the better, but I just wanted to share this chart.

The AAC had some pretty bad offenses last year. UConn combined inefficiency with a total lack of big-play ability in a way that was pretty unique, even before the late-season collapse. And opponent adjustments weren’t kind.

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today is about a massive culture change for an offense that desperately needs it.

Getting Lashlee was a potential coup. Granted, Lashlee — an Arkansas product and longtime Gus Malzahn follower — has never worked above the Mason-Dixon line. And granted, it might take him a little while to figure out what he can do with the talent at hand. But he has long studied under one of football’s great innovators, and while tempo is not a cure-all, it could be good to add some energy to a unit that has spent the last two tenures as an afterthought.

Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

Rhett Lashlee

One assumes Lashlee will use tempo and motion to create whatever advantages are possible, and he’ll run as much as UConn is allowed to. What assets does he inherit? (Believe it or not, there are a few.)

Running back Arkeel Newsome. It feels like he’s been at UConn for about eight years, but the senior-to-be has provided some explosiveness. In the last two years, he’s rushed for 1,507 yards at 4.6 per carry, and he’s caught 70 passes for 738 yards. As far as raw numbers go, these aren’t amazing, but consider the help he wasn’t getting. His explosiveness numbers are strong, and his receiving success rate was somehow over 50 percent last year. If he gets to face a strained defense for once, he could do some great things.

Junior receivers Hergy Mayala and Tyraiq Beals. I’m not going to overstate the proven capabilities of these two, but despite seemingly every snap being third-and-long, they combined to catch 30 balls for 392 yards (13.1 per carry, 6.6 yards per target). They’ve got decent athleticism, and again, if the defense is actually distracted, they could get open deep.

South Carolina transfer David Williams. The former four-star never lived up to his recruiting hype and got lost in a deep pool of decent backs at South Carolina. At 6’1, 220 pounds, he brings some heft, and he caught nine of nine passes for 72 yards last year. [Update: He’s no longer with UConn.]

Three-star redshirt freshmen. Recruiting wasn’t as much of a strength for Diaco as was expected, but he did leave Lashlee with a couple of reasonably exciting athletes. Running back Nate Hopkins is big, and receiver Quayvon Skanes is fast, and they could see the ball sooner than later. Same goes for not-quite-three-stars Ja’Kevious Vickers (RB) and Keyion Dixon (WR).

Five linemen with starting experience. Not all experience is good experience, of course.

Options at tight end and quarterback. Not all options are good options, of course. [Update: Former three-star TE recruit Jay Rose has rejoined the team as a walk-on after a year off.]

If Lashlee finds first-year success, it will likely be because of the combination of Newsome and either Shirreffs or Williams in the backfield. Williams can run, and Lashlee helped to engineer massive success at Auburn with a converted defensive back (Nick Marshall) at QB. And if he’s just not working, Shirreffs can run a bit, too.

Improvement is guaranteed, but ranking 110th in Off. S&P+ would represent significant improvement. The bar is low.

Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images

Arkeel Newsome

Defense

That UConn’s offense was awful wan’t that much of a surprise last year. It was, after all, the second time in three years that the Huskies had ranked 127th in Off. S&P+. That the defense sank to 87th in Def. S&P+ was more jarring. The Huskies had ranked 32nd in 2015 and returned experience at each level of the defense.

Despite experience and a relative lack of turnover, though, the pass defense was particularly awful.

Passing S&P+ rank: 54th in 2015, then 122nd in 2016

Completion rate allowed: 59%, then 64%

Yards per completion allowed: 10.5, then 12.0

Passer rating allowed: 112.7, then 141.0

Adj. Sack Rate rank: 89th, then 118th

The run defense was also worse (from 52nd in 2015 to 74th in Rushing S&P+), but it at least somewhat resembled what we expect from UConn. The regression in pass defense was jarring.

Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

Jamar Summers

That makes it a little bit of an interesting time to move to a 3-3-5 look. UConn must replace three of its top four from a disappointing secondary and add an extra safety to the starting lineup. Diaco signed a couple of exciting DBs last year (redshirt freshmen Tahj Herring-Wilson, Eddie Hahn), and Edsall added a few more this past February (namely, mid-three-star safety Ian Swenson). Still, any immediate improvement would likely come from the veterans, cornerback Jamar Summers in particular. Even in a disappointing year, Summers finished with four tackles for loss and 11 passes defensed.

Name recognition made Lashlee the headliner of the coordinator hires, but the hire of Crocker might reap as many or more immediate dividends. His 2016 Villanova defense was exciting and awesome.

The Wildcats allowed just 15 points per game and 4.4 yards per play, basically turning every opponent into the UConn offense. Opponents converted just 30 percent of their third downs (which tends to speak to great first-down efficiency), and Nova’s havoc rate of 17.8 percent would have ranked a decent 33rd in FBS. Opponents averaged 3.9 yards per carry (removing sacks from the equation) and completed just 57 percent of passes with 17 picks.

Granted, Crocker’s 2017 defense might not have anyone as good as Nova star Tanoh Kpassagnon on it, but the front seven does have a couple of nice havoc guys. Luke Carrezola can play either end or outside linebacker and has produced 22.5 tackles for loss over the last two years.

Meanwhile, end Cole Ormsby and linebacker Vontae Diggs combined for 16.5 TFLs and 5 sacks in 2016. The loss of linebacker E.J. Levenberry to an ACL injury (he’s due back in October at the earliest) hurts, but to me, the secondary is far more of a concern than the front six. If Crocker has the pieces in the back, he’ll have the pieces in the front.

Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images

Luke Carrezola

Special Teams

Bobby Puyol was okay in place-kicking and excellent in rare kickoff opportunities. Punter Justin Wain was solid. Punt returner Brian Lemelle was at least good at fair catching balls before they had a chance to roll for a while. UConn ended up 82nd in Special Teams S&P+ last year, instead of something worse, because of these three. They’re all gone. The only special teams guy back is Arkeel Newsome in kick returns, but he wasn’t actually that good at it. So yeah, UConn’s special teams will be somewhere between a mystery and a disaster. TBD.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 31-Aug Holy Cross NR 25.4 93% 9-Oct South Florida 56 -17.5 16% 16-Sep at Virginia 70 -18.6 14% 30-Sep at SMU 81 -14.1 21% 6-Oct Memphis 61 -17.0 16% 14-Oct at Temple 67 -20.8 12% 21-Oct Tulsa 77 -11.5 25% 28-Oct Missouri 53 -17.9 15% 4-Nov East Carolina 100 -4.7 39% 11-Nov at Central Florida 78 -16.4 17% 18-Nov Boston College 76 -11.5 25% 25-Nov at Cincinnati 75 -16.7 17%

Projected S&P+ Rk 125 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 126 / 98 Projected wins 3.1 Five-Year S&P+ Rk -16.8 (123) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 104 / 90 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* -8 / -2.7 2016 TO Luck/Game -2.2 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 57% (60%, 53%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 2.8 (0.2)

Strangely enough, it doesn’t take many ifs to make UConn a competitive team in 2017.

If Newsome is given a chance to thrive.

If a new, energetic offense gives UConn top-100 numbers.

If Crocker is able to restore competence to UConn’s pass defense.

That’s pretty much it. Give the Huskies those three semi-realistic things, and you’ve got a top-70 or top-80 team. The schedule features eight teams projected 70th or lower. That probably still doesn’t get UConn to a bowl, but the Huskies come close.

Still, this offense was destitute in 2016, and the defense was UConn’s worst in more than a decade. Maybe bad offense fed bad defense, and maybe a blood transfusion will fix all ills, but maybe we just punt on setting any expectations until 2018.

I didn’t love the Edsall hire when it was made; I thought it spoke far more to raising UConn’s floor than it did raising its ceiling. But when you bottom out like the Huskies did, a higher floor sounds appealing. And when your supposedly low-ceiling hire goes out and signs two exciting coordinators, then maybe the hire has more upside than realized.

Team preview stats

All preview data to date.

[envirotravel]

Kicking the Can: How I Broke My Addiction to Diet Coke

For about a full decade of my life, I was a full fledged Diet Coke addict.

It was a part of who I was — I cracked open a can first thing in the morning, friends sent me Buzzfeed articles about things only Diet Coke addicts could understand, I had a little Diet Coke keychain and a Diet Coke mousepad, and my family I would send each other level red, full blown SOS texts when the fridge was running low. I was drinking 2-3 cans a day, plus fountain (my preferred delivery of choice) whenever I could get my hands on it, and I really had no true interest in stopping.

And then, suddenly, I did.

On March 1st of 2016 I started a one month Diet Coke free month while in Thailand, and on April 1st I decided what the heck — I extended another two weeks until I flew through the USA. After six weeks, the spell was broken, and I no longer feel powerless over the pull of the silver can.

So why cut the cord? I admit, of the many reasons people kick Diet Coke habits, I did so for pretty superficial reasons. I was trying desperately to lose ten pounds that had creeped on slowly, and I’d been reading a lot about the connection between diet sodas and weight gain and was curious to see if I’d magically become a size zero again. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t.) But the connection between diet sodas and out-of-whack metabolisms and insulin production were hard to ignore, and the more I learned the more convinced I became that a trial period without it was something I needed to try.

But also, it was at times a very inconvenient addiction and I hated feeling so beholden to a particular can of fizz. When I woke up in the morning, it was the first thing I drank, and I was cranky and irritable when I couldn’t source it — which was fairly often, considering I often travel to remote areas, and Diet Coke is still rare in many corners of the world.

At the time, I searched pretty desperately for first-hand accounts those who were also trying to kick a soda habit, and came up surprisingly empty. So, my fizzy drink loving friends, here is mine.

My uncle — who once ran a Coca Cola museum! It runs in the fam!

How I Did It

I never intended to cut Diet Coke out of my life entirely. Drinking Diet Coke was so much a part of both my daily routine and my identity I don’t think I ever could have started had that been my intention. Yet after years of trying to casually “cut back,” I knew I had to do something drastic if I ever wanted to make it a reality.

Today, I am no longer addicted to Diet Coke and that is all thanks to an initial six week cleanse that I did in which I did not consume a single sip (more about my current consumption later.) In fact, it started as just a month long challenge which I extended for two weeks based on how good I felt! That cleanse was completely necessary to sever my dependence to the stuff and allow me to start living with a normal, non-crazy person’s relationship with soda after it ended. I should probably note that Diet Coke was the only soda I ever really drank ��� I think Coca Cola tastes repulsive and outside of the rare diet root beer or craft soda on some sort of special occasion (hello, artisanal sodas at a county fair!), so Diet Coke and I had a pretty monogamous relationship.

Everyone warned me about the withdrawal symptoms I’d have. Aside from a few terrible headaches the first few days, I actually didn’t find the physical side-effects to be too dramatic. I attribute the ease with which this cleanse went to my research ahead of time, the replacements I used, and where I did it.

I did a ton of research

Once I decided to do the cleanse, it was actually pretty easy in practice. And that decision was inspired by research I did as part of my DIY Health Retreat.

Watching documentaries like Fed Up and reading books like What Are You Hungry For? made the transition really easy. I was also recommended the documentary Sweet Misery, which I plan to watch on the plane back to the US to strengthen my resolve for another addiction-free summer. Also, I’m not going to lie, I read several interviews with skinny people — LOL — who said that they never drink diet sodas, and message board accounts from those who dropped pounds doing so. In the spirit of full disclosure I also read a ton of comments and message board posts from those who quit and never lost a pound, but everyone who did so seemed to feel it had a positive impact on their life.

Those books and movies really spoke to the specific reasons I was personally looking to cut back — vanity, duh. They dove into how aspartame disrupts the body’s metabolism and craving systems and lead to unintentional weight gain, despite being zero calories.

Now look, it’s not like until last year I was walking around thinking Diet Coke was this super healthy product that I was treating my body like a temple by consuming. Not in the slightest — I knew Diet Coke was bad for me and I literally did not care, at least not enough to make me change. Thankfully, in this case, my desperation to lose a few pounds led me down an unlikely path that has had a holistic and positive effect on my life.

I told my friends

So strong was my resolve that the only serious cravings I had in those first six weeks were the two times I was tragically hungover. And because I had already told my friends what I was doing and they knew how important it was to me, they stopped me from giving in, reminding me how proud I’d feel when I hit the four — and then six — week mark.

I replaced it with something else

One of my primary concerns going into this cleanse was that Diet Coke made up the vast majority of my beverage consumption. Like literally, what the heck was I going to drink? Well, I now drink tea like it’s going out of style, as well as one or two carbonated waters per day and a TON more straight up tap water than I’ve ever drank in my life. Let’s get into each of those:

Tea

I have never been a tea drinker and so I did a bunch of research to find out which teas had caffeine — which I wanted — and which I would actually like. I absolutely loathe black tea (sorry, Brits) but found green tea sort of tolerable, so I started out my putting one green tea bag into a mug with another herbal flavor that I enjoyed more, like lemongrass. For the first week or two of my cleanse, I sweetened my tea with local honey, though I quickly phased that out and I now drink my tea straight up, no sweetener.

A year later, I am a complete and total tea fiend and start every day with a mug of green tea rather than a Diet Coke, and usually go for an herbal tea over ice in the afternoon. I love trying new flavors — this brand from Hawaii is a recent obsession. Still no black tea though — which yes, makes trips to the UK a challenge.

Water

I have struggled my entire life to drink water. My cleanse kick started a new habit in which I drink more than ever. I generally try to drink a full 17 oz. bottle between breakfast and lunch, between lunch and dinner, and whenever I work out. Combined with my carbonated water at meals and my morning and afternoon tea, I now easily exceed the recommended 64 oz. per day without too much trouble.

My recommendation? Get a fun, easy-to-drink stainless steel bottle that you love and will want to take everywhere, and have a jug or filter in your fridge so you have easy access to cold, ready-to-go tap water anytime. If you live somewhere with great water you can literally just use a nice pitcher, if you live somewhere where drinking tap water isn’t advisable — like I do — I highly recommend this Clearly Filtered Pitcher.

Carbonated Water

Or seltzer, or if you’re here in Thailand, soda water. To this day I can’t stand to drink straight up tap water with meals, it just doesn’t feel right. Seltzer is literally just regular water infused with air, and is just as safe and hydrating to drink as regular water (though studies do show it can be slightly more filling, and does have some extremely mild effect on dental health.)

So I now have unflavored seltzer with pretty much every single lunch and dinner. When I’m in the US, I sometimes I have fun with the naturally flavored ones. I drink so much of the stuff I’m thinking of getting a seltzer machine like my mom has at home, and bringing it with me back to Thailand.

I did it somewhere away from the USA

I know this probably isn’t exactly replicable for most people, but it was a huge factor towards my success. Doing the Diet Coke cleanse in Thailand, where I’m not a fan of the local formula, made it so much easier than had I tried it stateside. If you can find some way — any way! — to shake up your routine, I think that will make all the difference in helping you to snap out of deeply ingrained habits.

While you may not want to mar a trip or vacation with withdrawal symptoms, starting a few days before you leave and your enthusiasm is still strong might be the perfect way to distract yourself just as your willpower might be wearing off. (And ya know, now that I added this, it’s totally relevant fodder for a travel blog! Nailed it!)

Make a calendar

I actually didn’t do this, but if I started to struggle or stumble I would have bought or printed out a calendar, and marked off each day I made it without Diet Coke. I always find tracking and visual aids to be incredibly effective in helping me meet goals and stay strong through a challenge.

What I Learned

I have always considered myself to have an insane sweet tooth and ravenously consumed candy, desserts and all kinds of sugary goodness on a near-daily bases. Very quickly after giving up Diet Coke, those cravings have all but disappeared. I still loved my sweet treats but I noticed that I didn’t HAVE to have them, and so throughout the course of my cleanse they were more of an actual occasional treat instead of a daily obsession. I even noticed my cravings for/consumption of things like bread and pasta subsided.

I was somewhat disorienting to realize that this thing I thought was just a core part of who I was was actually induced by a chemical I’ve been consuming daily for the last decade and a half. Some researchers believe artificial sweeteners like the aspartame in Diet Coke actually fuel the brain’s desire for the real thing, and after six weeks, I agreed with them.

Today, recognizing that my cravings are at least partially a result of choices I’ve made has actually been incredibly empowering. When I’m perusing 711 for snacks before a late night work session, I can no longer grab a bag of M&M’s with the excuse that, “Well I’m just a sweet-tooth having, sugar-loving fiend and there’s nothing I can do to change it!” Instead I think, “Well, I’m craving candy right now because I made the choice to have Diet Coke with my lunch. I can choose to go for it, or I can choose to have a banana instead.” It actually feels really good.

No, I didn’t drop a dress size. But I did find a new awareness of what was fueling my cravings. And as someone who considers herself to have like, zero willpower, it was kind of cool to set such a lofty goal and not just meet but exceed it.

One Year Later

Like I said earlier, I never intended to give up Diet Coke entirely — and I didn’t. Some warned that after six weeks I wouldn’t be able to stand a sip of the stuff, and I can assure you that did not happen. But I do feel like I have a normal, non-psycho person’s relationship with Diet Coke now, and that is a beautiful thing.

For the most part, I probably average about a can a week. When I’m extremely stressed and sleep deprived, I definitely fall back into a can a day. But that has only happened a couple times and within a few days I actually now see it as a big red flag I’m waving at myself — whoa girl, pull in the reigns on your life. Something isn’t right.

I split my year between Thailand and the US, and I admit that it’s much easier to go without here in Thailand, where I never even really liked the local formula but drank it out of pure dependence. In the US, I still love the taste of the stuff, especially the fountain version, and so it is much harder to avoid — especially because when I’m stateside I bounce between staying with various family members who are all still hardcore hooked. What I tried experimenting with last summer was not allowing myself cans at home, and instead only treating myself to fountain Diet Cokes when I was out and about running errands. Therefore it felt more like a special treat that I savored every second of, and less like something I was mindlessly downing out of habit. If I’m staying in a house where I have any input over what’s in the fridge, I keep it Diet Coke-free to avoid the temptation.

While there are definitely certain locations that tempt me to spiral out of control again (hello, my mom and dad’s houses!), overall I feel incredibly free from my old aluminum shackles. It kind of grosses me out now to think that in the past I would drink Diet Coke out of a bottle, or even, heaven forbid, the occasional fountain Diet Pepsi at a restaurant — thing I literally don’t even like — just because I felt like I was powerless not to.

It feel so good to go to a four day festival where there’s no Diet version of Coke and not loose my shit. It feels so nice to stay at a resort that stocks Pepsi (gross) and not freak the flip out. It feels very freeing to no longer wake up in the morning, bug out that the fridge is empty, and disrupt my day by sprinting to the closest minimart to stock up before my dang day can start.

While breaking my Diet Coke addiction didn’t make me the size zero supermodel I had hoped — just kidding, there are no catwalks in the future of this 5’2″-er — it was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. It made me feel empowered, it removed a frequent hassle from my life, and it was a major game-changer in the healthier lifestyle I am always trying to cultivate.

Are you a current or reformed diet soda addict? Tell all in the comments!

Please note I know there are a lot of different opinions out there about food and addiction and if you happen to disagree with what I write here, please know it isn’t meant to offend you — I’m just sharing my own personal experiences and thoughts, and I respect that other people’s will be different! Feel free to share your own experiences in the comments.

Want to learn more about the science behind Diet Coke addiction? This article is a good place to start. 

Kicking the Can: How I Broke My Addiction to Diet Coke posted first on http://ift.tt/2k2mjrD

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include the art behind Thimbleweed Park, the rise of RimWorld, and much, much more.

For anyone counting, this is week 31 of picks, and I'm still managing to keep up the weekly pace - primarily because my regular social media trawls during the week allow me to stack up links to post at the weekend! And this is still without regular RSS feed checking - so there's got to be a bunch more stories I'm missing. Ah well.

So much good stuff out there - and I really enjoyed some of the more esoteric stories in this week's set, including the piece on Tamagotchi collectors and the visually impaired Roguelike players. There are all kinds of unique, wonderful video game nerds under the sun, aren't there? Until next time...

- Simon, curator.]

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The Stress of Game Development - Tips for Survival (Extra Credits / YouTube) "Making games is hard. You need all kinds of technical and creative skills, but most importantly, you need to know how to manage the many kinds of stress that come with it."

Game Design Deep Dive: Watch Dogs 2's Invasion of Privacy missions (Christopher Dragert / Gamasutra) "In this article, I will describe some of the technical challenges and design decisions that drove development of the Invasion of Privacy feature in Watch Dogs 2. Areas of focus will include managing branching scenarios, motion capture challenges, controlling NPC state, maintaining dialog flow, and NPC coordination."

Video Games Aren’t Addictive (Christopher J Ferguson & Patrick Markey / New York Times) "Is video game addiction a real thing? It’s certainly common to hear parents complain that their children are “addicted” to video games. Some researchers even claim that these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence on the brain — that they are “digital heroin” (the neuroscientist Peter C. Whybrow) or “digital pharmakeia” (the neuroscientist Andrew Doan)."

The Job Simulator Postmortem (Alex Schwartz & Devin Reimer / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 postmortem, Owlchemy Labs' Alexander Schwartz and Devin Reimer analyze the challenges of building, sharing, shipping, and sustaining Job Simulator on multiple platforms with examples showing both successful and less-than-successful design prototypes and how iteration led to the final product."

The Underground World of Tamagotchi Collectors (Alyssa Bereznak / The Ringer) "On October 26 of last year, a user named “psychotama” made his first entry in what would become a detailed online diary, otherwise known as a “Tama log.” “I’m not quite sure how to begin,” he wrote in purple Comic Sans. “My journey with Tamagotchi began about 13 years ago.”"

'Make me think, make me move': New Doom's deceptively simple design (Kris Graft / Gamasutra) "Doom is known for its speed and straightforwardness – move fast, shoot demons. It's a seemingly simple combination that, at the franchise’s best, evokes an ultraviolent cognitive flow. But Doom’s apparent simplicity belies a core design that is difficult to achieve."

From 'Zelda' to 'Witcher 3': Why We're Still Talking About 'Skyrim' (Alex Kane / Glixel) "How Bethesda's 2011 masterpiece – and the colossal online culture of fan art, memes, and music surrounding it – forever changed the game for fantasy RPGs."

Precious Moments, Hype and High School: A Conversation with 'Persona 5' Director Katsura Hashino (Sayem Ahmed / Waypoint) "Hashino tells me that seeing the anticipation for the game build, as previously announced street dates passed and more information on the game crept out via the press, was both "encouraging and scary.""

How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons (Noam Scheiber / New York Times) "The company has undertaken an extraordinary experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice an independent work force to maximize its growth. [SIMON'S NOTE: you may have seen this, but thought it particularly interesting that GDC board member Chelsea Howe was also quoted in here re: F2P-style coercive psychology evils.]"

Why games like 'Super Mario 64' had terrible cameras (Mike Rougeau / Mashable) "The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games; the term describes not just our perspective and view of a digital space, but the freedom of or restrictions on how we as players control that viewpoint."

A Year after Firewatch (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "With sales of more than a million copies, developer Campo Santo is now working on its next project: unannounced as yet. I sat down with writer Sean Vanaman to talk about the direction he wants to go in next, and how he feels about Firewatch one year after its launch."

Kevin Horton Is a Cryogenics Engineer Turned Retro Gaming Savior (Nicholas DeLeon / Motherboard) "By day Horton, 43, is an engineer at a cryogenics company (he's worked at the same company since high school). But online, he's better known online as Kevtris (in reference to a Tetris clone he developed in the mid-1990s), where he is the brains behind a series of critical technological breakthroughs that allow gamers to play classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on modern televisions."

Interactive Fiction Appears at the Whitney Biennial (Chris Klimas / Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation) "The 2017 Whitney Biennial has something curious to offer fans of interactive fiction. Among the works shown this year are With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs, Twine works written by Charity Heartscape Porpentine. [SIMON'S NOTE: short article, but great news, & the linked interview is also notable.]"

From Rational to Emotional: Designs that Increase Player Retention (Jim Brown / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 session, Epic's Jim Brown provides specific examples of design techniques that encourage the formation of enduring emotional ties that could enhance both retention and enjoyment for players in game design."

A Brief History Of Speedrunning (Kat Brewster / ReadOnlyMemory) "A good speedrun is hypnotising to watch – this goes for ones showcased at GDQ, or the ones which get circulated around the internet for their insane jumps or cutscene skips or lightning fast movement. They’re a dizzying show of hard won skill and palpable effort. The video of a world record time which knocks an hours-long campaign into minutes can be jaw-dropping."

In Their War With The Wall Street Journal, Top YouTubers Just Played Themselves (Patricia Hernandez / Kotaku) "Over the last couple of weeks, anger has been bubbling on YouTube over the news that major brands pulled advertisements on the platform in an effort to avoid being matched with objectionable content. The reports, which were published by the Wall Street Journal, were met with such skepticism that they sparked scandalous conspiracy theories among YouTube’s top creators."

After tragedy strikes, a dev's friends strive to complete his game (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "Former Harmonix programmer Roger Morash had been working on his passion project, a co-op platformer called Shard, for years before he died in January of this year. "

Inside the Shady World of PlayStation Network Account Resellers (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) "A few weeks ago, Mic Fok got a weird email. The person writing it claimed they'd been playing Overwatch on a PlayStation Network account for more than six months, but the password had changed recently. But why would Fok know anything about this random dude's account?"

(Not) a Thimbleweed Park review (Matej Jan / Retronator) "Thimbleweed Park started as a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. “It’s like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you’ve never played before.” [SIMON'S NOTE: mainly linking this for the amaaazing vintage Mark Ferrari art linked within, tho the whole thing is cute!]"

Playing roguelikes when you can’t see (Kent Sutherland / RockPaperShotgun) "For most of us, traditional roguelikes are intrinsically inaccessible. They’re notoriously difficult, their design is complicated and often opaque, they can have more hotkeys than there are keys on the keyboard, and their ASCII-based visuals mean that it’s often unclear what’s happening on the screen. It’s these exact qualities, however, that ironically make roguelikes accessible and even appealing to blind or low-sight players."

The Game Beat Weekly: Digital Foundry and Microsoft make it "exclusive" (Kyle Orland / Tinyletter) "That kind of server-melting traffic shows why it would have been somewhat crazy for Eurogamer to turn down Microsoft's invitation to see Scorpio up close at their Redmond headquarters last week. But agreeing to an exclusive of this magnitude also risks coming across as a mere mouthpiece for a company you're supposed to be covering with a kind of detached objectivity."

The Witness - Noclip Documentary (NoClip / YouTube) "What lies at the heart of Jonathan Blow's island of mystery? We talk to the famed indie designer about how one of his earliest design ideas blossomed into The Witness."

A Pioneer Story: How MECC Blazed New Trails (Joe Juba / Game Informer) "Decades ago, as computing migrated from research labs and universities and into the mainstream, one company in Minnesota was instrumental in bringing technology into classrooms. Thanks to its focused mission and talented staff, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) used exceptional software like The Oregon Trail to engage and educate a generation of students – and establish an unforgettable legacy."

Inside 'RimWorld', the Cult Sci-Fi Hit That Just Keeps Growing (Chris Priestman / Glixel) "Since its earliest public release on Steam Early Access in July, RimWorld – a sci-fi space colony sim – has amassed more than 600,000 players, and it's not even a finished project."

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[junker-town]

How UConn football’s throwback hire of Randy Edsall can work ... eventually

The prodigal Husky’s list of tasks is relatively simple, if not easy.

I pride myself on how many different stats, rates, and angles I can produce from simple lines of play-by-play data, but sometimes you don’t need a ton of numbers to learn all you need to know about a team.

Take UConn, for instance. All you need to know about the 2016 Connecticut Huskies boils down to the number 9.

On October 15, Bobby Puyol kicked a 26-yard field goal 7:56 into the game to give UConn a 3-0 lead on USF.

A week later, Puyol kicked field goals of 22 and 33 yards in the first 12 minutes against UCF.

In 12 games, those are the nine first-quarter points the Huskies scored.

NINE. Nine points! In the equivalent of three full games!

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that UConn didn’t end up with the worst Off. S&P+ rating in the country. Texas State’s managed to grade out worse. Or maybe the biggest surprise is that, with the second-worst offense in the country and a first-quarter deficit in almost every game, the Huskies still managed to win three games.

After breaking through with a six-win season in 2015 (despite an offense that ranked 115th), Bob Diaco’s Huskies lost any semblance of momentum. The offense plummeted back to 2014 levels, and the defense crumpled. Any first-quarter deficit was virtually impossible to overcome. And in a single year, Diaco went from dragging the program forward to looking for a new job.

Since losing Edsall to Maryland in 2010, UConn lost its way. The school tried the “veteran coach who knows the Northeast” route and brought in Syracuse legend Paul Pasqualoni to keep Edsall’s eight-wins-a-year ship moving. He went 10-18. So the school went with the “hire a major program’s star coordinator” approach, and Diaco went 11-26, with more than half of his wins coming in a single year.

UConn has proved it can put a good defense on the field; the Huskies have ranked in the Def. S&P+ top 50 seven times in the last 10 years and three times in the six since Edsall’s departure. They got as high as 18th under Pasqualoni and 32nd under Diaco.

Meanwhile, the Huskies have also proved offense is really hard. They have not topped 105th in Off. S&P+ since Edsall left, and even in Edsall’s last six years, they ranked higher than 68th just once.

Without an ideal new hire available, the school decided to start over. UConn only once ranked better than 47th overall in S&P+ under Edsall, but 47th is better than anything that happened since he left. Edsall, fired from Maryland a year earlier, was available. It was time to get the band back together.

I’m not a big fan of a recycling hire and gave UConn a C+ last December, but I’ll say this: while the hire might reek of living in the past, Edsall is not. He made an exciting pair of coordinator hires, bringing in Villanova’s aggressive, creative Billy Crocker to run his defense and asking former Auburn play-caller Rhett Lashlee to figure out how to score points.

Granted, Edsall also brought former UConn QB Dan Orlovsky back to fill the nostalgia quotient, but he wants his new Huskies to be fast and (gasp) modern. Consider me intrigued.

Of course, if this experiment fails, we’ll all be writing something condescending about old dogs learning new tricks. At Edsall’s peak, UConn wasn’t the most exciting team in the world.

Plus, it’s going to take a little while for these chess pieces to do what Edsall and company want. UConn has experience at quarterback and in the defensive front six/seven, and there are a couple of viable pieces in the skill corps. Still, when you had the second-worst offense in the country, you can improve quite a bit and still be bad.

Setting the bar low and assuming a Year Zero situation is probably apt, but there does appear to be potential. And the fact that Edsall doesn’t seem to be trying to reset the clock to 2009 is a good sign.

The first time UConn hired Edsall, he was a 40-year-old with just one year of coordinator experience. It worked; he led the Huskies to FBS and, after a couple of years of toil, produced a consistently decent product in the Big East.

This time, UConn is getting a 58-year-old with 17 years of head coaching experience and a good knowledge of what the job entails. You can see the draw. We just don’t know if we’ll see the results.

2016 in review

2016 UConn statistical profile.

Even with the first-quarter troubles, UConn wasn’t completely awful at the start of 2016. The Huskies started 3-3 with wins over Virginia and Cincinnati and tight losses to Navy and Syracuse.

Things went haywire late, though. Quarterback Bryant Shirreffs, battling injury all year, lost his job to true freshman Donovan Williams after a 41-3 debacle against a bad ECU. UConn got outscored by a combined 89-13 over the final three games. The Huskies went from bad to horrendous.

First 8 games (3-5): Avg. percentile performance: 30% (~top 90) | Avg. yards per play: Opp 5.9, UConn 5.1 (minus-0.8) | Avg. score: Opp 26, UConn 20 (minus-6)

Last 4 games (0-4): Avg. percentile performance: 5% (~bottom 10) | Avg. yards per play: Opp 5.5, UConn 4.1 (minus-1.4) | Avg. score: Opp 33, UConn 4 (minus-29)

It was a curious decision; Williams completed 47 percent of his passes with one touchdown, five interceptions, and 12 sacks. In a small sample, even averaging 5.6 yards per (non-sack) carry, he graded out as maybe the least effective QB in FBS. Burning a redshirt to play a guy for three games is questionable enough already, but this was downright strange.

Of course, it could have been a sign of mercy. Shirreffs was hurt all season and had taken 23 sacks.

Regardless, a full month after the season ended, UConn athletic director David Benedict decided to let Diaco go after initially deciding the opposite. Evidently he wasn’t satisfied with Diaco’s plans for fixing the offense.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

The less said about UConn’s 2016 offense, the better, but I just wanted to share this chart.

The AAC had some pretty bad offenses last year. UConn combined inefficiency with a total lack of big-play ability in a way that was pretty unique, even before the late-season collapse. And opponent adjustments weren’t kind.

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today is about a massive culture change for an offense that desperately needs it.

Getting Lashlee was a potential coup. Granted, Lashlee — an Arkansas product and longtime Gus Malzahn follower — has never worked above the Mason-Dixon line. And granted, it might take him a little while to figure out what he can do with the talent at hand. But he has long studied under one of football’s great innovators, and while tempo is not a cure-all, it could be good to add some energy to a unit that has spent the last two tenures as an afterthought.

Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

Rhett Lashlee

One assumes Lashlee will use tempo and motion to create whatever advantages are possible, and he’ll run as much as UConn is allowed to. What assets does he inherit? (Believe it or not, there are a few.)

Running back Arkeel Newsome. It feels like he’s been at UConn for about eight years, but the senior-to-be has provided some explosiveness. In the last two years, he’s rushed for 1,507 yards at 4.6 per carry, and he’s caught 70 passes for 738 yards. As far as raw numbers go, these aren’t amazing, but consider the help he wasn’t getting. His explosiveness numbers are strong, and his receiving success rate was somehow over 50 percent last year. If he gets to face a strained defense for once, he could do some great things.

Junior receivers Hergy Mayala and Tyraiq Beals. I’m not going to overstate the proven capabilities of these two, but despite seemingly every snap being third-and-long, they combined to catch 30 balls for 392 yards (13.1 per carry, 6.6 yards per target). They’ve got decent athleticism, and again, if the defense is actually distracted, they could get open deep.

South Carolina transfer David Williams. The former four-star never lived up to his recruiting hype and got lost in a deep pool of decent backs at South Carolina. At 6’1, 220 pounds, he brings some heft, and he caught nine of nine passes for 72 yards last year.

Three-star redshirt freshmen. Recruiting wasn’t as much of a strength for Diaco as was expected, but he did leave Lashlee with a couple of reasonably exciting athletes. Running back Nate Hopkins is big, and receiver Quayvon Skanes is fast, and they could see the ball sooner than later. Same goes for not-quite-three-stars Ja’Kevious Vickers (RB) and Keyion Dixon (WR).

Five linemen with starting experience. Not all experience is good experience, of course.

Options at tight end and quarterback. Not all options are good options, of course.

If Lashlee finds first-year success, it will likely be because of the combination of Newsome and either Shirreffs or Williams in the backfield. Williams can run, and Lashlee helped to engineer massive success at Auburn with a converted defensive back (Nick Marshall) at QB. And if he’s just not working, Shirreffs can run a bit, too.

Improvement is guaranteed, but ranking 110th in Off. S&P+ would represent significant improvement. The bar is low.

Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images

Arkeel Newsome

Defense

That UConn’s offense was awful wan’t that much of a surprise last year. It was, after all, the second time in three years that the Huskies had ranked 127th in Off. S&P+. That the defense sank to 87th in Def. S&P+ was more jarring. The Huskies had ranked 32nd in 2015 and returned experience at each level of the defense.

Despite experience and a relative lack of turnover, though, the pass defense was particularly awful.

Passing S&P+ rank: 54th in 2015, then 122nd in 2016

Completion rate allowed: 59%, then 64%

Yards per completion allowed: 10.5, then 12.0

Passer rating allowed: 112.7, then 141.0

Adj. Sack Rate rank: 89th, then 118th

The run defense was also worse (from 52nd in 2015 to 74th in Rushing S&P+), but it at least somewhat resembled what we expect from UConn. The regression in pass defense was jarring.

Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

Jamar Summers

That makes it a little bit of an interesting time to move to a 3-3-5 look. UConn must replace three of its top four from a disappointing secondary and add an extra safety to the starting lineup. Diaco signed a couple of exciting DBs last year (redshirt freshmen Tahj Herring-Wilson, Eddie Hahn), and Edsall added a few more this past February (namely, mid-three-star safety Ian Swenson). Still, any immediate improvement would likely come from the veterans, cornerback Jamar Summers in particular. Even in a disappointing year, Summers finished with four tackles for loss and 11 passes defensed.

Name recognition made Lashlee the headliner of the coordinator hires, but the hire of Crocker might reap as many or more immediate dividends. His 2016 Villanova defense was exciting and awesome.

The Wildcats allowed just 15 points per game and 4.4 yards per play, basically turning every opponent into the UConn offense. Opponents converted just 30 percent of their third downs (which tends to speak to great first-down efficiency), and Nova’s havoc rate of 17.8 percent would have ranked a decent 33rd in FBS. Opponents averaged 3.9 yards per carry (removing sacks from the equation) and completed just 57 percent of passes with 17 picks.

Granted, Crocker’s 2017 defense might not have anyone as good as Nova star Tanoh Kpassagnon on it, but the front seven does have a couple of nice havoc guys. Luke Carrezola can play either end or outside linebacker and has produced 22.5 tackles for loss over the last two years.

Meanwhile, end Cole Ormsby and linebacker Vontae Diggs combined for 16.5 TFLs and 5 sacks in 2016. The loss of linebacker E.J. Levenberry to an ACL injury (he’s due back in October at the earliest) hurts, but to me, the secondary is far more of a concern than the front six. If Crocker has the pieces in the back, he’ll have the pieces in the front.

Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images

Luke Carrezola

Special Teams

Bobby Puyol was okay in place-kicking and excellent in rare kickoff opportunities. Punter Justin Wain was solid. Punt returner Brian Lemelle was at least good at fair catching balls before they had a chance to roll for a while. UConn ended up 82nd in Special Teams S&P+ last year, instead of something worse, because of these three. They’re all gone. The only special teams guy back is Arkeel Newsome in kick returns, but he wasn’t actually that good at it. So yeah, UConn’s special teams will be somewhere between a mystery and a disaster. TBD.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 31-Aug Holy Cross NR 25.4 93% 9-Oct South Florida 56 -17.5 16% 16-Sep at Virginia 70 -18.6 14% 30-Sep at SMU 81 -14.1 21% 6-Oct Memphis 61 -17.0 16% 14-Oct at Temple 67 -20.8 12% 21-Oct Tulsa 77 -11.5 25% 28-Oct Missouri 53 -17.9 15% 4-Nov East Carolina 100 -4.7 39% 11-Nov at Central Florida 78 -16.4 17% 18-Nov Boston College 76 -11.5 25% 25-Nov at Cincinnati 75 -16.7 17%

Projected S&P+ Rk 125 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 126 / 98 Projected wins 3.1 Five-Year S&P+ Rk -16.8 (123) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 104 / 90 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* -8 / -2.7 2016 TO Luck/Game -2.2 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 57% (60%, 53%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 2.8 (0.2)

Strangely enough, it doesn’t take many ifs to make UConn a competitive team in 2017.

If Newsome is given a chance to thrive.

If a new, energetic offense gives UConn top-100 numbers.

If Crocker is able to restore competence to UConn’s pass defense.

That’s pretty much it. Give the Huskies those three semi-realistic things, and you’ve got a top-70 or top-80 team. The schedule features eight teams projected 70th or lower. That probably still doesn’t get UConn to a bowl, but the Huskies come close.

Still, this offense was destitute in 2016, and the defense was UConn’s worst in more than a decade. Maybe bad offense fed bad defense, and maybe a blood transfusion will fix all ills, but maybe we just punt on setting any expectations until 2018.

I didn’t love the Edsall hire when it was made; I thought it spoke far more to raising UConn’s floor than it did raising its ceiling. But when you bottom out like the Huskies did, a higher floor sounds appealing. And when your supposedly low-ceiling hire goes out and signs two exciting coordinators, then maybe the hire has more upside than realized.

Team preview stats

All preview data to date.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include the art behind Thimbleweed Park, the rise of RimWorld, and much, much more.

For anyone counting, this is week 31 of picks, and I'm still managing to keep up the weekly pace - primarily because my regular social media trawls during the week allow me to stack up links to post at the weekend! And this is still without regular RSS feed checking - so there's got to be a bunch more stories I'm missing. Ah well.

So much good stuff out there - and I really enjoyed some of the more esoteric stories in this week's set, including the piece on Tamagotchi collectors and the visually impaired Roguelike players. There are all kinds of unique, wonderful video game nerds under the sun, aren't there? Until next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

The Stress of Game Development - Tips for Survival (Extra Credits / YouTube) "Making games is hard. You need all kinds of technical and creative skills, but most importantly, you need to know how to manage the many kinds of stress that come with it."

Game Design Deep Dive: Watch Dogs 2's Invasion of Privacy missions (Christopher Dragert / Gamasutra) "In this article, I will describe some of the technical challenges and design decisions that drove development of the Invasion of Privacy feature in Watch Dogs 2. Areas of focus will include managing branching scenarios, motion capture challenges, controlling NPC state, maintaining dialog flow, and NPC coordination."

Video Games Aren’t Addictive (Christopher J Ferguson & Patrick Markey / New York Times) "Is video game addiction a real thing? It’s certainly common to hear parents complain that their children are “addicted” to video games. Some researchers even claim that these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence on the brain — that they are “digital heroin” (the neuroscientist Peter C. Whybrow) or “digital pharmakeia” (the neuroscientist Andrew Doan)."

The Job Simulator Postmortem (Alex Schwartz & Devin Reimer / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 postmortem, Owlchemy Labs' Alexander Schwartz and Devin Reimer analyze the challenges of building, sharing, shipping, and sustaining Job Simulator on multiple platforms with examples showing both successful and less-than-successful design prototypes and how iteration led to the final product."

The Underground World of Tamagotchi Collectors (Alyssa Bereznak / The Ringer) "On October 26 of last year, a user named “psychotama” made his first entry in what would become a detailed online diary, otherwise known as a “Tama log.” “I’m not quite sure how to begin,” he wrote in purple Comic Sans. “My journey with Tamagotchi began about 13 years ago.”"

'Make me think, make me move': New Doom's deceptively simple design (Kris Graft / Gamasutra) "Doom is known for its speed and straightforwardness – move fast, shoot demons. It's a seemingly simple combination that, at the franchise’s best, evokes an ultraviolent cognitive flow. But Doom’s apparent simplicity belies a core design that is difficult to achieve."

From 'Zelda' to 'Witcher 3': Why We're Still Talking About 'Skyrim' (Alex Kane / Glixel) "How Bethesda's 2011 masterpiece – and the colossal online culture of fan art, memes, and music surrounding it – forever changed the game for fantasy RPGs."

Precious Moments, Hype and High School: A Conversation with 'Persona 5' Director Katsura Hashino (Sayem Ahmed / Waypoint) "Hashino tells me that seeing the anticipation for the game build, as previously announced street dates passed and more information on the game crept out via the press, was both "encouraging and scary.""

How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons (Noam Scheiber / New York Times) "The company has undertaken an extraordinary experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice an independent work force to maximize its growth. [SIMON'S NOTE: you may have seen this, but thought it particularly interesting that GDC board member Chelsea Howe was also quoted in here re: F2P-style coercive psychology evils.]"

Why games like 'Super Mario 64' had terrible cameras (Mike Rougeau / Mashable) "The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games; the term describes not just our perspective and view of a digital space, but the freedom of or restrictions on how we as players control that viewpoint."

A Year after Firewatch (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "With sales of more than a million copies, developer Campo Santo is now working on its next project: unannounced as yet. I sat down with writer Sean Vanaman to talk about the direction he wants to go in next, and how he feels about Firewatch one year after its launch."

Kevin Horton Is a Cryogenics Engineer Turned Retro Gaming Savior (Nicholas DeLeon / Motherboard) "By day Horton, 43, is an engineer at a cryogenics company (he's worked at the same company since high school). But online, he's better known online as Kevtris (in reference to a Tetris clone he developed in the mid-1990s), where he is the brains behind a series of critical technological breakthroughs that allow gamers to play classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on modern televisions."

Interactive Fiction Appears at the Whitney Biennial (Chris Klimas / Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation) "The 2017 Whitney Biennial has something curious to offer fans of interactive fiction. Among the works shown this year are With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs, Twine works written by Charity Heartscape Porpentine. [SIMON'S NOTE: short article, but great news, & the linked interview is also notable.]"

From Rational to Emotional: Designs that Increase Player Retention (Jim Brown / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 session, Epic's Jim Brown provides specific examples of design techniques that encourage the formation of enduring emotional ties that could enhance both retention and enjoyment for players in game design."

A Brief History Of Speedrunning (Kat Brewster / ReadOnlyMemory) "A good speedrun is hypnotising to watch – this goes for ones showcased at GDQ, or the ones which get circulated around the internet for their insane jumps or cutscene skips or lightning fast movement. They’re a dizzying show of hard won skill and palpable effort. The video of a world record time which knocks an hours-long campaign into minutes can be jaw-dropping."

In Their War With The Wall Street Journal, Top YouTubers Just Played Themselves (Patricia Hernandez / Kotaku) "Over the last couple of weeks, anger has been bubbling on YouTube over the news that major brands pulled advertisements on the platform in an effort to avoid being matched with objectionable content. The reports, which were published by the Wall Street Journal, were met with such skepticism that they sparked scandalous conspiracy theories among YouTube’s top creators."

After tragedy strikes, a dev's friends strive to complete his game (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "Former Harmonix programmer Roger Morash had been working on his passion project, a co-op platformer called Shard, for years before he died in January of this year. "

Inside the Shady World of PlayStation Network Account Resellers (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) "A few weeks ago, Mic Fok got a weird email. The person writing it claimed they'd been playing Overwatch on a PlayStation Network account for more than six months, but the password had changed recently. But why would Fok know anything about this random dude's account?"

(Not) a Thimbleweed Park review (Matej Jan / Retronator) "Thimbleweed Park started as a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. “It’s like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you’ve never played before.” [SIMON'S NOTE: mainly linking this for the amaaazing vintage Mark Ferrari art linked within, tho the whole thing is cute!]"

Playing roguelikes when you can’t see (Kent Sutherland / RockPaperShotgun) "For most of us, traditional roguelikes are intrinsically inaccessible. They’re notoriously difficult, their design is complicated and often opaque, they can have more hotkeys than there are keys on the keyboard, and their ASCII-based visuals mean that it’s often unclear what’s happening on the screen. It’s these exact qualities, however, that ironically make roguelikes accessible and even appealing to blind or low-sight players."

The Game Beat Weekly: Digital Foundry and Microsoft make it "exclusive" (Kyle Orland / Tinyletter) "That kind of server-melting traffic shows why it would have been somewhat crazy for Eurogamer to turn down Microsoft's invitation to see Scorpio up close at their Redmond headquarters last week. But agreeing to an exclusive of this magnitude also risks coming across as a mere mouthpiece for a company you're supposed to be covering with a kind of detached objectivity."

The Witness - Noclip Documentary (NoClip / YouTube) "What lies at the heart of Jonathan Blow's island of mystery? We talk to the famed indie designer about how one of his earliest design ideas blossomed into The Witness."

A Pioneer Story: How MECC Blazed New Trails (Joe Juba / Game Informer) "Decades ago, as computing migrated from research labs and universities and into the mainstream, one company in Minnesota was instrumental in bringing technology into classrooms. Thanks to its focused mission and talented staff, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) used exceptional software like The Oregon Trail to engage and educate a generation of students – and establish an unforgettable legacy."

Inside 'RimWorld', the Cult Sci-Fi Hit That Just Keeps Growing (Chris Priestman / Glixel) "Since its earliest public release on Steam Early Access in July, RimWorld – a sci-fi space colony sim – has amassed more than 600,000 players, and it's not even a finished project."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include the art behind Thimbleweed Park, the rise of RimWorld, and much, much more.

For anyone counting, this is week 31 of picks, and I'm still managing to keep up the weekly pace - primarily because my regular social media trawls during the week allow me to stack up links to post at the weekend! And this is still without regular RSS feed checking - so there's got to be a bunch more stories I'm missing. Ah well.

So much good stuff out there - and I really enjoyed some of the more esoteric stories in this week's set, including the piece on Tamagotchi collectors and the visually impaired Roguelike players. There are all kinds of unique, wonderful video game nerds under the sun, aren't there? Until next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

The Stress of Game Development - Tips for Survival (Extra Credits / YouTube) "Making games is hard. You need all kinds of technical and creative skills, but most importantly, you need to know how to manage the many kinds of stress that come with it."

Game Design Deep Dive: Watch Dogs 2's Invasion of Privacy missions (Christopher Dragert / Gamasutra) "In this article, I will describe some of the technical challenges and design decisions that drove development of the Invasion of Privacy feature in Watch Dogs 2. Areas of focus will include managing branching scenarios, motion capture challenges, controlling NPC state, maintaining dialog flow, and NPC coordination."

Video Games Aren’t Addictive (Christopher J Ferguson & Patrick Markey / New York Times) "Is video game addiction a real thing? It’s certainly common to hear parents complain that their children are “addicted” to video games. Some researchers even claim that these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence on the brain — that they are “digital heroin” (the neuroscientist Peter C. Whybrow) or “digital pharmakeia” (the neuroscientist Andrew Doan)."

The Job Simulator Postmortem (Alex Schwartz & Devin Reimer / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 postmortem, Owlchemy Labs' Alexander Schwartz and Devin Reimer analyze the challenges of building, sharing, shipping, and sustaining Job Simulator on multiple platforms with examples showing both successful and less-than-successful design prototypes and how iteration led to the final product."

The Underground World of Tamagotchi Collectors (Alyssa Bereznak / The Ringer) "On October 26 of last year, a user named “psychotama” made his first entry in what would become a detailed online diary, otherwise known as a “Tama log.” “I’m not quite sure how to begin,” he wrote in purple Comic Sans. “My journey with Tamagotchi began about 13 years ago.”"

'Make me think, make me move': New Doom's deceptively simple design (Kris Graft / Gamasutra) "Doom is known for its speed and straightforwardness – move fast, shoot demons. It's a seemingly simple combination that, at the franchise’s best, evokes an ultraviolent cognitive flow. But Doom’s apparent simplicity belies a core design that is difficult to achieve."

From 'Zelda' to 'Witcher 3': Why We're Still Talking About 'Skyrim' (Alex Kane / Glixel) "How Bethesda's 2011 masterpiece – and the colossal online culture of fan art, memes, and music surrounding it – forever changed the game for fantasy RPGs."

Precious Moments, Hype and High School: A Conversation with 'Persona 5' Director Katsura Hashino (Sayem Ahmed / Waypoint) "Hashino tells me that seeing the anticipation for the game build, as previously announced street dates passed and more information on the game crept out via the press, was both "encouraging and scary.""

How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons (Noam Scheiber / New York Times) "The company has undertaken an extraordinary experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice an independent work force to maximize its growth. [SIMON'S NOTE: you may have seen this, but thought it particularly interesting that GDC board member Chelsea Howe was also quoted in here re: F2P-style coercive psychology evils.]"

Why games like 'Super Mario 64' had terrible cameras (Mike Rougeau / Mashable) "The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games; the term describes not just our perspective and view of a digital space, but the freedom of or restrictions on how we as players control that viewpoint."

A Year after Firewatch (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "With sales of more than a million copies, developer Campo Santo is now working on its next project: unannounced as yet. I sat down with writer Sean Vanaman to talk about the direction he wants to go in next, and how he feels about Firewatch one year after its launch."

Kevin Horton Is a Cryogenics Engineer Turned Retro Gaming Savior (Nicholas DeLeon / Motherboard) "By day Horton, 43, is an engineer at a cryogenics company (he's worked at the same company since high school). But online, he's better known online as Kevtris (in reference to a Tetris clone he developed in the mid-1990s), where he is the brains behind a series of critical technological breakthroughs that allow gamers to play classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on modern televisions."

Interactive Fiction Appears at the Whitney Biennial (Chris Klimas / Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation) "The 2017 Whitney Biennial has something curious to offer fans of interactive fiction. Among the works shown this year are With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs, Twine works written by Charity Heartscape Porpentine. [SIMON'S NOTE: short article, but great news, & the linked interview is also notable.]"

From Rational to Emotional: Designs that Increase Player Retention (Jim Brown / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 session, Epic's Jim Brown provides specific examples of design techniques that encourage the formation of enduring emotional ties that could enhance both retention and enjoyment for players in game design."

A Brief History Of Speedrunning (Kat Brewster / ReadOnlyMemory) "A good speedrun is hypnotising to watch – this goes for ones showcased at GDQ, or the ones which get circulated around the internet for their insane jumps or cutscene skips or lightning fast movement. They’re a dizzying show of hard won skill and palpable effort. The video of a world record time which knocks an hours-long campaign into minutes can be jaw-dropping."

In Their War With The Wall Street Journal, Top YouTubers Just Played Themselves (Patricia Hernandez / Kotaku) "Over the last couple of weeks, anger has been bubbling on YouTube over the news that major brands pulled advertisements on the platform in an effort to avoid being matched with objectionable content. The reports, which were published by the Wall Street Journal, were met with such skepticism that they sparked scandalous conspiracy theories among YouTube’s top creators."

After tragedy strikes, a dev's friends strive to complete his game (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "Former Harmonix programmer Roger Morash had been working on his passion project, a co-op platformer called Shard, for years before he died in January of this year. "

Inside the Shady World of PlayStation Network Account Resellers (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) "A few weeks ago, Mic Fok got a weird email. The person writing it claimed they'd been playing Overwatch on a PlayStation Network account for more than six months, but the password had changed recently. But why would Fok know anything about this random dude's account?"

(Not) a Thimbleweed Park review (Matej Jan / Retronator) "Thimbleweed Park started as a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. “It’s like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you’ve never played before.” [SIMON'S NOTE: mainly linking this for the amaaazing vintage Mark Ferrari art linked within, tho the whole thing is cute!]"

Playing roguelikes when you can’t see (Kent Sutherland / RockPaperShotgun) "For most of us, traditional roguelikes are intrinsically inaccessible. They’re notoriously difficult, their design is complicated and often opaque, they can have more hotkeys than there are keys on the keyboard, and their ASCII-based visuals mean that it’s often unclear what’s happening on the screen. It’s these exact qualities, however, that ironically make roguelikes accessible and even appealing to blind or low-sight players."

The Game Beat Weekly: Digital Foundry and Microsoft make it "exclusive" (Kyle Orland / Tinyletter) "That kind of server-melting traffic shows why it would have been somewhat crazy for Eurogamer to turn down Microsoft's invitation to see Scorpio up close at their Redmond headquarters last week. But agreeing to an exclusive of this magnitude also risks coming across as a mere mouthpiece for a company you're supposed to be covering with a kind of detached objectivity."

The Witness - Noclip Documentary (NoClip / YouTube) "What lies at the heart of Jonathan Blow's island of mystery? We talk to the famed indie designer about how one of his earliest design ideas blossomed into The Witness."

A Pioneer Story: How MECC Blazed New Trails (Joe Juba / Game Informer) "Decades ago, as computing migrated from research labs and universities and into the mainstream, one company in Minnesota was instrumental in bringing technology into classrooms. Thanks to its focused mission and talented staff, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) used exceptional software like The Oregon Trail to engage and educate a generation of students – and establish an unforgettable legacy."

Inside 'RimWorld', the Cult Sci-Fi Hit That Just Keeps Growing (Chris Priestman / Glixel) "Since its earliest public release on Steam Early Access in July, RimWorld – a sci-fi space colony sim – has amassed more than 600,000 players, and it's not even a finished project."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include the art behind Thimbleweed Park, the rise of RimWorld, and much, much more.

For anyone counting, this is week 31 of picks, and I'm still managing to keep up the weekly pace - primarily because my regular social media trawls during the week allow me to stack up links to post at the weekend! And this is still without regular RSS feed checking - so there's got to be a bunch more stories I'm missing. Ah well.

So much good stuff out there - and I really enjoyed some of the more esoteric stories in this week's set, including the piece on Tamagotchi collectors and the visually impaired Roguelike players. There are all kinds of unique, wonderful video game nerds under the sun, aren't there? Until next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

The Stress of Game Development - Tips for Survival (Extra Credits / YouTube) "Making games is hard. You need all kinds of technical and creative skills, but most importantly, you need to know how to manage the many kinds of stress that come with it."

Game Design Deep Dive: Watch Dogs 2's Invasion of Privacy missions (Christopher Dragert / Gamasutra) "In this article, I will describe some of the technical challenges and design decisions that drove development of the Invasion of Privacy feature in Watch Dogs 2. Areas of focus will include managing branching scenarios, motion capture challenges, controlling NPC state, maintaining dialog flow, and NPC coordination."

Video Games Aren’t Addictive (Christopher J Ferguson & Patrick Markey / New York Times) "Is video game addiction a real thing? It’s certainly common to hear parents complain that their children are “addicted” to video games. Some researchers even claim that these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence on the brain — that they are “digital heroin” (the neuroscientist Peter C. Whybrow) or “digital pharmakeia” (the neuroscientist Andrew Doan)."

The Job Simulator Postmortem (Alex Schwartz & Devin Reimer / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 postmortem, Owlchemy Labs' Alexander Schwartz and Devin Reimer analyze the challenges of building, sharing, shipping, and sustaining Job Simulator on multiple platforms with examples showing both successful and less-than-successful design prototypes and how iteration led to the final product."

The Underground World of Tamagotchi Collectors (Alyssa Bereznak / The Ringer) "On October 26 of last year, a user named “psychotama” made his first entry in what would become a detailed online diary, otherwise known as a “Tama log.” “I’m not quite sure how to begin,” he wrote in purple Comic Sans. “My journey with Tamagotchi began about 13 years ago.”"

'Make me think, make me move': New Doom's deceptively simple design (Kris Graft / Gamasutra) "Doom is known for its speed and straightforwardness – move fast, shoot demons. It's a seemingly simple combination that, at the franchise’s best, evokes an ultraviolent cognitive flow. But Doom’s apparent simplicity belies a core design that is difficult to achieve."

From 'Zelda' to 'Witcher 3': Why We're Still Talking About 'Skyrim' (Alex Kane / Glixel) "How Bethesda's 2011 masterpiece – and the colossal online culture of fan art, memes, and music surrounding it – forever changed the game for fantasy RPGs."

Precious Moments, Hype and High School: A Conversation with 'Persona 5' Director Katsura Hashino (Sayem Ahmed / Waypoint) "Hashino tells me that seeing the anticipation for the game build, as previously announced street dates passed and more information on the game crept out via the press, was both "encouraging and scary.""

How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons (Noam Scheiber / New York Times) "The company has undertaken an extraordinary experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice an independent work force to maximize its growth. [SIMON'S NOTE: you may have seen this, but thought it particularly interesting that GDC board member Chelsea Howe was also quoted in here re: F2P-style coercive psychology evils.]"

Why games like 'Super Mario 64' had terrible cameras (Mike Rougeau / Mashable) "The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games; the term describes not just our perspective and view of a digital space, but the freedom of or restrictions on how we as players control that viewpoint."

A Year after Firewatch (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "With sales of more than a million copies, developer Campo Santo is now working on its next project: unannounced as yet. I sat down with writer Sean Vanaman to talk about the direction he wants to go in next, and how he feels about Firewatch one year after its launch."

Kevin Horton Is a Cryogenics Engineer Turned Retro Gaming Savior (Nicholas DeLeon / Motherboard) "By day Horton, 43, is an engineer at a cryogenics company (he's worked at the same company since high school). But online, he's better known online as Kevtris (in reference to a Tetris clone he developed in the mid-1990s), where he is the brains behind a series of critical technological breakthroughs that allow gamers to play classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on modern televisions."

Interactive Fiction Appears at the Whitney Biennial (Chris Klimas / Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation) "The 2017 Whitney Biennial has something curious to offer fans of interactive fiction. Among the works shown this year are With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs, Twine works written by Charity Heartscape Porpentine. [SIMON'S NOTE: short article, but great news, & the linked interview is also notable.]"

From Rational to Emotional: Designs that Increase Player Retention (Jim Brown / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 session, Epic's Jim Brown provides specific examples of design techniques that encourage the formation of enduring emotional ties that could enhance both retention and enjoyment for players in game design."

A Brief History Of Speedrunning (Kat Brewster / ReadOnlyMemory) "A good speedrun is hypnotising to watch – this goes for ones showcased at GDQ, or the ones which get circulated around the internet for their insane jumps or cutscene skips or lightning fast movement. They’re a dizzying show of hard won skill and palpable effort. The video of a world record time which knocks an hours-long campaign into minutes can be jaw-dropping."

In Their War With The Wall Street Journal, Top YouTubers Just Played Themselves (Patricia Hernandez / Kotaku) "Over the last couple of weeks, anger has been bubbling on YouTube over the news that major brands pulled advertisements on the platform in an effort to avoid being matched with objectionable content. The reports, which were published by the Wall Street Journal, were met with such skepticism that they sparked scandalous conspiracy theories among YouTube’s top creators."

After tragedy strikes, a dev's friends strive to complete his game (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "Former Harmonix programmer Roger Morash had been working on his passion project, a co-op platformer called Shard, for years before he died in January of this year. "

Inside the Shady World of PlayStation Network Account Resellers (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) "A few weeks ago, Mic Fok got a weird email. The person writing it claimed they'd been playing Overwatch on a PlayStation Network account for more than six months, but the password had changed recently. But why would Fok know anything about this random dude's account?"

(Not) a Thimbleweed Park review (Matej Jan / Retronator) "Thimbleweed Park started as a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. “It’s like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you’ve never played before.” [SIMON'S NOTE: mainly linking this for the amaaazing vintage Mark Ferrari art linked within, tho the whole thing is cute!]"

Playing roguelikes when you can’t see (Kent Sutherland / RockPaperShotgun) "For most of us, traditional roguelikes are intrinsically inaccessible. They’re notoriously difficult, their design is complicated and often opaque, they can have more hotkeys than there are keys on the keyboard, and their ASCII-based visuals mean that it’s often unclear what’s happening on the screen. It’s these exact qualities, however, that ironically make roguelikes accessible and even appealing to blind or low-sight players."

The Game Beat Weekly: Digital Foundry and Microsoft make it "exclusive" (Kyle Orland / Tinyletter) "That kind of server-melting traffic shows why it would have been somewhat crazy for Eurogamer to turn down Microsoft's invitation to see Scorpio up close at their Redmond headquarters last week. But agreeing to an exclusive of this magnitude also risks coming across as a mere mouthpiece for a company you're supposed to be covering with a kind of detached objectivity."

The Witness - Noclip Documentary (NoClip / YouTube) "What lies at the heart of Jonathan Blow's island of mystery? We talk to the famed indie designer about how one of his earliest design ideas blossomed into The Witness."

A Pioneer Story: How MECC Blazed New Trails (Joe Juba / Game Informer) "Decades ago, as computing migrated from research labs and universities and into the mainstream, one company in Minnesota was instrumental in bringing technology into classrooms. Thanks to its focused mission and talented staff, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) used exceptional software like The Oregon Trail to engage and educate a generation of students – and establish an unforgettable legacy."

Inside 'RimWorld', the Cult Sci-Fi Hit That Just Keeps Growing (Chris Priestman / Glixel) "Since its earliest public release on Steam Early Access in July, RimWorld – a sci-fi space colony sim – has amassed more than 600,000 players, and it's not even a finished project."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include the art behind Thimbleweed Park, the rise of RimWorld, and much, much more.

For anyone counting, this is week 31 of picks, and I'm still managing to keep up the weekly pace - primarily because my regular social media trawls during the week allow me to stack up links to post at the weekend! And this is still without regular RSS feed checking - so there's got to be a bunch more stories I'm missing. Ah well.

So much good stuff out there - and I really enjoyed some of the more esoteric stories in this week's set, including the piece on Tamagotchi collectors and the visually impaired Roguelike players. There are all kinds of unique, wonderful video game nerds under the sun, aren't there? Until next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

The Stress of Game Development - Tips for Survival (Extra Credits / YouTube) "Making games is hard. You need all kinds of technical and creative skills, but most importantly, you need to know how to manage the many kinds of stress that come with it."

Game Design Deep Dive: Watch Dogs 2's Invasion of Privacy missions (Christopher Dragert / Gamasutra) "In this article, I will describe some of the technical challenges and design decisions that drove development of the Invasion of Privacy feature in Watch Dogs 2. Areas of focus will include managing branching scenarios, motion capture challenges, controlling NPC state, maintaining dialog flow, and NPC coordination."

Video Games Aren’t Addictive (Christopher J Ferguson & Patrick Markey / New York Times) "Is video game addiction a real thing? It’s certainly common to hear parents complain that their children are “addicted” to video games. Some researchers even claim that these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence on the brain — that they are “digital heroin” (the neuroscientist Peter C. Whybrow) or “digital pharmakeia” (the neuroscientist Andrew Doan)."

The Job Simulator Postmortem (Alex Schwartz & Devin Reimer / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 postmortem, Owlchemy Labs' Alexander Schwartz and Devin Reimer analyze the challenges of building, sharing, shipping, and sustaining Job Simulator on multiple platforms with examples showing both successful and less-than-successful design prototypes and how iteration led to the final product."

The Underground World of Tamagotchi Collectors (Alyssa Bereznak / The Ringer) "On October 26 of last year, a user named “psychotama” made his first entry in what would become a detailed online diary, otherwise known as a “Tama log.” “I’m not quite sure how to begin,” he wrote in purple Comic Sans. “My journey with Tamagotchi began about 13 years ago.”"

'Make me think, make me move': New Doom's deceptively simple design (Kris Graft / Gamasutra) "Doom is known for its speed and straightforwardness – move fast, shoot demons. It's a seemingly simple combination that, at the franchise’s best, evokes an ultraviolent cognitive flow. But Doom’s apparent simplicity belies a core design that is difficult to achieve."

From 'Zelda' to 'Witcher 3': Why We're Still Talking About 'Skyrim' (Alex Kane / Glixel) "How Bethesda's 2011 masterpiece – and the colossal online culture of fan art, memes, and music surrounding it – forever changed the game for fantasy RPGs."

Precious Moments, Hype and High School: A Conversation with 'Persona 5' Director Katsura Hashino (Sayem Ahmed / Waypoint) "Hashino tells me that seeing the anticipation for the game build, as previously announced street dates passed and more information on the game crept out via the press, was both "encouraging and scary.""

How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons (Noam Scheiber / New York Times) "The company has undertaken an extraordinary experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice an independent work force to maximize its growth. [SIMON'S NOTE: you may have seen this, but thought it particularly interesting that GDC board member Chelsea Howe was also quoted in here re: F2P-style coercive psychology evils.]"

Why games like 'Super Mario 64' had terrible cameras (Mike Rougeau / Mashable) "The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games; the term describes not just our perspective and view of a digital space, but the freedom of or restrictions on how we as players control that viewpoint."

A Year after Firewatch (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "With sales of more than a million copies, developer Campo Santo is now working on its next project: unannounced as yet. I sat down with writer Sean Vanaman to talk about the direction he wants to go in next, and how he feels about Firewatch one year after its launch."

Kevin Horton Is a Cryogenics Engineer Turned Retro Gaming Savior (Nicholas DeLeon / Motherboard) "By day Horton, 43, is an engineer at a cryogenics company (he's worked at the same company since high school). But online, he's better known online as Kevtris (in reference to a Tetris clone he developed in the mid-1990s), where he is the brains behind a series of critical technological breakthroughs that allow gamers to play classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on modern televisions."

Interactive Fiction Appears at the Whitney Biennial (Chris Klimas / Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation) "The 2017 Whitney Biennial has something curious to offer fans of interactive fiction. Among the works shown this year are With Those We Love Alive and howling dogs, Twine works written by Charity Heartscape Porpentine. [SIMON'S NOTE: short article, but great news, & the linked interview is also notable.]"

From Rational to Emotional: Designs that Increase Player Retention (Jim Brown / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 session, Epic's Jim Brown provides specific examples of design techniques that encourage the formation of enduring emotional ties that could enhance both retention and enjoyment for players in game design."

A Brief History Of Speedrunning (Kat Brewster / ReadOnlyMemory) "A good speedrun is hypnotising to watch – this goes for ones showcased at GDQ, or the ones which get circulated around the internet for their insane jumps or cutscene skips or lightning fast movement. They’re a dizzying show of hard won skill and palpable effort. The video of a world record time which knocks an hours-long campaign into minutes can be jaw-dropping."

In Their War With The Wall Street Journal, Top YouTubers Just Played Themselves (Patricia Hernandez / Kotaku) "Over the last couple of weeks, anger has been bubbling on YouTube over the news that major brands pulled advertisements on the platform in an effort to avoid being matched with objectionable content. The reports, which were published by the Wall Street Journal, were met with such skepticism that they sparked scandalous conspiracy theories among YouTube’s top creators."

After tragedy strikes, a dev's friends strive to complete his game (Chris Priestman / Gamasutra) "Former Harmonix programmer Roger Morash had been working on his passion project, a co-op platformer called Shard, for years before he died in January of this year. "

Inside the Shady World of PlayStation Network Account Resellers (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) "A few weeks ago, Mic Fok got a weird email. The person writing it claimed they'd been playing Overwatch on a PlayStation Network account for more than six months, but the password had changed recently. But why would Fok know anything about this random dude's account?"

(Not) a Thimbleweed Park review (Matej Jan / Retronator) "Thimbleweed Park started as a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. “It’s like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you’ve never played before.” [SIMON'S NOTE: mainly linking this for the amaaazing vintage Mark Ferrari art linked within, tho the whole thing is cute!]"

Playing roguelikes when you can’t see (Kent Sutherland / RockPaperShotgun) "For most of us, traditional roguelikes are intrinsically inaccessible. They’re notoriously difficult, their design is complicated and often opaque, they can have more hotkeys than there are keys on the keyboard, and their ASCII-based visuals mean that it’s often unclear what’s happening on the screen. It’s these exact qualities, however, that ironically make roguelikes accessible and even appealing to blind or low-sight players."

The Game Beat Weekly: Digital Foundry and Microsoft make it "exclusive" (Kyle Orland / Tinyletter) "That kind of server-melting traffic shows why it would have been somewhat crazy for Eurogamer to turn down Microsoft's invitation to see Scorpio up close at their Redmond headquarters last week. But agreeing to an exclusive of this magnitude also risks coming across as a mere mouthpiece for a company you're supposed to be covering with a kind of detached objectivity."

The Witness - Noclip Documentary (NoClip / YouTube) "What lies at the heart of Jonathan Blow's island of mystery? We talk to the famed indie designer about how one of his earliest design ideas blossomed into The Witness."

A Pioneer Story: How MECC Blazed New Trails (Joe Juba / Game Informer) "Decades ago, as computing migrated from research labs and universities and into the mainstream, one company in Minnesota was instrumental in bringing technology into classrooms. Thanks to its focused mission and talented staff, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) used exceptional software like The Oregon Trail to engage and educate a generation of students – and establish an unforgettable legacy."

Inside 'RimWorld', the Cult Sci-Fi Hit That Just Keeps Growing (Chris Priestman / Glixel) "Since its earliest public release on Steam Early Access in July, RimWorld – a sci-fi space colony sim – has amassed more than 600,000 players, and it's not even a finished project."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]