The Sunday Papers

Sundays are about crawling out of a sleeping bag to find a friend's two children determinedly trying to attach themselves to your legs and forcing you to march around the front room pretending to be a RoboGodzilla powered by tea, going for a walk and acting as a human umbrella, and compiling a list of fine (mainly games) reading from across the week, while trying not to include something I've been playing all week and/or howling in the car on the way home. Go!

• Point/Counterpoint: Randy Pitchfork thinks Valve exploits small indie devs. John Gibson of Tripwire (i.e. Killing Floor) thinks if it's exploitation, he could do with some more of that, thankyou.
• Mark Pay, creator of Spirit Engine 2, is interviewed herein. I didn't know he was from Kent! Also, less happily, I didn't know it was turned down from Steam and has sold just over 50 copies. Crikey.
• Quinns gets very angry indeed about Fable 2's breadcrumbs feature. The boy likes it hard. Also, difficult games. Meanwhile, he also has a ramble about Valkyria Chronicles.Also, fantasises about blowing shit up. Ah, that Quinns.
• Leigh Alexander ripostes Denby's argument that games should be easier.
• Mike Simpson of Creative Assembly starts blogging with a post about communication with the community.
• Craig and Jaz over at Gaming Daily have a discussion about Killing Animals, starting with an IN THE GAME gag and rolling over into the feature. I say, kill them all, especially if they're tasty.
• Denby on the furore around Dead Space's producer saying the fact Dead Space got an iffy review from a Official XBox US was because a freelancer did it. Except it wasn't. She was an Intern. Hmm.
• Were you worried about offworld? Well, Brandon says WHAT'S NEXT.
• Yeah, we haven't done the next part of that AI War diary. Let the Reticule's interview with Chris Park sooth you.
• Over at Game Set Watch, Alex Litel reviews Citizen Kane: The Videogame.
• We haven't done much on Iron Tower's other game besides the still-awaiting Age of Decadance, the Lovecraftian Cyclopean. It's because there hasn't been much game to be shown yet. However, its designer is doing a lot of fiction set in it. Don't read any books. Never read any books.
• We mentioned this in the podcast post, but in case you missed it, here's Tim Schafer on Jimmy Fallon's late night chat show. Struck me as genuinely important in a low level way - one of Our Figures on TV just talking about his new game, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
• Fuck me, the Chris Ware covers for the new edition of Candide are a work of art.
• The photos from Berlin this week were amazing.
• Comrade Marc Ellerby hits strip 200 in his Ellerbisms. He celebrates with a week of other fine webcomics people doing stuff. I especially like his girlfriend Anna writing about what it's like to be immortalised in art. Or, at least, Marc's work.
• I picked this up when Bryan O'Malley tweeted it. It's a list - including the songs - of the 50 records that mattered from 1900-1919 (or so it's entitled, despite being about the arse end of the 19th century too). Just fascinating stuff.
• I've been mainly listening to the new Mountain Goats all this week, which is on Spotify if you want to give it a go. But since there's no single or anything, I was also screaming along to Go Your Own Way when driving back from Oxford just now. Yay!

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