The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for staring at Mr Muscle, debating for a second whether you could take him, then coming to the conclusion that you absolutely couldn't. Before you consider things, let's read this week's best writing about games.

Alice Bee pointed out this Guardian article by Sophie Elmhirst, who wrote about the disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world's first cryptocurrency cruise ship. A cracking find with some excellent phrases.

So far, the Seasteading Institute had experienced variable, or zero, success with its projects. Early ideas for a “Baystead” and “Coaststead” off the coast of San Francisco and a “Clubstead”, a resort off the coast of California, never made the leap to reality. An attempt to create a floating island prototype in French Polynesia in 2017 met with fairly fierce resistance from the people of French Polynesia and collapsed a year later when the government pulled out of the scheme.

Over on Gfinity, former RPSer James Law talked to the people behind FPS cheating software. I don't think anyone could convince me cheating is good, but hey, it's interesting to hear what these distributors have to say.

"If everyone were using cheats, that would be fine with me; we would just code a counter cheat so other cheat makers couldn't target us," they say.

For Fanbyte, Jack Yarwood chronicled the story of Hi-Tech Expressions, the original rockstars of gaming.

“They hired me only because Bill recommended me,” Phil tells me over email. “My job was to answer the phone when people called the number that was printed on the box because they couldn’t make it work. Of course, I was the last person in the world they wanted to talk to! Most people who called me there for my helpful knowledge knew way more about computers than I did and often seemed puzzled by my crappy answers. Like the guy who asked me if the game would work on a PC and I answered ‘A PC? what the fuck is a PC?!’”

For Eurogamer, Grace Curtis asks: Have you ever gone to great lengths to save an NPC?

"I guess I tried to save Eileen the Crow after she died during my first Bloodborne playthrough, though I've chosen a bit more of an... unconventional route. "After the opportunity to write the Bloodborne comic presented itself, I quickly realised it wasn't about saving her, but about giving her more life, which, in fiction, doesn't have to mean the same thing. In a way, the Eileen volume of the Bloodborne run became an empathy engine, which is, to me, one of the key possible functions of art: a chance to see from the inside of someone else. I was processing lots about trauma and survivorhood watching Twin Peaks: The Return, thinking about trauma loops and not overcoming things, because trauma is not something one can necessarily overcome but perhaps something we can learn to live with and manage if luck and work, and other things, come together right."

On this here RPS, Brendy reviewed FPS Splitgate and not only is it a great read, it has possibly one of the best straplines I've ever seen.

The laws of momentum that govern the puzzles of GlaDOS are also present. It isn't long before the heroic possibilities of such a device make themselves clear. You can do flanky stuff, sure, putting a portal behind your enemies and stepping through to shoot them in the bum. A panicked portal is also the perfect escape mechanism, pooping one right at your feet to Wile E Coyote out of trouble. But what about bwooping a portal just in front of your enemy's feet? With the other end opening into a big instakill pit? What about leaping into an enemy portal far below to fly out at hilarious speed and donk them in the spine with a novelty baseball bat? The biggest revelation when playing Splitgate is that, so long as you are using the portals as often as possible, you will perform many of these feats completely by accident.

For CNN, Jacqui Palumbo wrote about Vermeer's 'hidden' cupid being the enigmatic artist's latest mystery.

Ahead of its upcoming show about the celebrated Dutch painter, the museum has released an image of a drastically changed "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window," which the Dutch artist painted between 1657 and 1659. Following a painstaking four-year-long restoration, the empty wall now shows a monumental painting of Cupid, discovered by X-ray in 1979, but now revealed for the first time.

For music this week, I'm going off the chain with two recommendations. WOAH.

First up, if you're a fan of hip-hop I implore you to give the album "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert" by Little Simz a listen. Slap some headphones on and just soak it in. By far one of the best projects I've heard this year, it's like, staggering how good it is. Here's a YouTube link and Spotify link to the album's opening track "Introvert".

And the bonus track this week is "How Can I Make It Okay?" by Wolf Alice. Here's the Youtube link and the Spotify one.

That's me. Have a solid Sunday everyone!