EMERYVILLE, Calif. — Pixar has announced a new movie for 2027 that will imagine a world in which Disney executives have emotions.
“We want to stay sharp,” said Quentin Spurgeon, an animator with Pixar. “We’ve given emotions to toys, bugs, and even emotions, so we wanted a real challenge. We first wondered about writing about rocks but then we thought, actually there is another thing on Earth with even fewer emotions than that.”
Disney executives championed the plotline after the mighty algorithm that decides what people like and want deemed it financially worthwhile.
“It has been decided,” intoned Oscar Kennedy, Disney’s junior VP for development. “We asked the great machine what the people want and it replied: live-action remakes of beloved animated movies, belated sequel series’ to 80s movies that people liked ironically, and Pixar movies with the caveat that the sequels are marketed well and the original stories seem to appear in cinemas as if by magic. With this new venture, we asked the algorithm if technology was suitably advanced to create the illusion that executives have emotions. After crashing three times, the algorithm finally said ‘affirmative’ before committing digital suicide.”
Child psychologists have spoken out about the planned movie due to the dangerous ideas it could present.
“This has possibly harmful ramifications,” said Leah Paladone, a child therapist and movie lover. “If we pretend executives have emotions, then children will want to be executives when they get older instead of realizing that it is the executives who are strangling the creativity of the arts. We don’t want children in the playground talking about green-lighting projects or shelving Star Wars movies. It is haunting that a child could see this movie and start talking about how it’s a good thing to delete a movie if it helps with tax write-offs or benefits the shareholders. Of course, my opinion might not mean anything as I recently lost my license for trying to convince the school board to make studying Luigi Mangione a mandatory topic from Kindergarten onwards.”
At press time, Disney hopes to release the movie in 2027 before adding it to Disney+ for two weeks and then deleting it forever.
NEW YORK CITY — In a move fueled purely by lack of consideration for others and a desperate hope to get in shape in time for beach season, you’ve purchased–and vehemently refuse to stop playing–Just Dance 2025, your downstairs neighbors confirm.
Ramon, 32, who lives in the apartment just below yours, was quick to weigh in with his thoughts on the latest installment in Ubisoft’s popular rhythm franchise.
“I’ve gotta say, Just Dance 2025 left a lot to be desired.” Ramon admitted. “We were expecting a killer tracklist this year, but so far the only standout has been what I have to assume is a footwork-only version of ‘Chop Suey!’. Last night I thought I heard Ariana Grande’s ‘Yes, And?’ but around what should’ve been the end of the second verse, I realized they were just fucking.”
Ramon’s roommate and fellow downstairs neighbor of yours, Ash, shared Ramon’s disappointment in the new game, highlighting some odd new features in the new iteration.
“The strangest thing about the game to me is the time-lock,” said Ash. “Apparently, the game will absolutely not let you play during the daytime when people are awake. I haven’t played the game myself yet, but I can’t think of any other reason why our neighbors would exclusively play between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.”
Ash and Ramon also reported that the game has already resulted in a number of injuries, it would seem.
“A couple of nights ago, during an especially spirited rendition of Miley Cyrus’s ‘Flowers’, we heard a deafening rip, followed by about sixteen minutes of uninterrupted sobbing,” said Ramon. “But just when we thought we ought to walk up and offer help, the song started over and they were right back to dancing.”
At press time, Ramon and Ash can’t quite figure out if they’re hearing “Paint the Town Red” or just a particularly heavy load in the wash.
CORUSCANT, GALACTIC CORE — Wide-spread turmoil rocked the galaxy today, as an anonymous Bothan spy revealed he had been accidentally added to the Empire’s comm channel discussing the Death Star II.
“Well, this certainly makes my job easier,” said Yarsk Kri-tel. “Me and the boys had been planning this big infiltration mission that would see most of us get killed. It’s honestly kind of shocking how incompetent these fascists actually are.”
The leak was not discovered for several hours, with the blame eventually pinned on the Emperor’s Fist, Darth Vader. Perhaps more shockingly, Vader had also uploaded the Death Star II plans to the comm channel, apparently because he ‘wanted them while working remotely from Mustufar’.
“They [the plans] weren’t even encrypted,” Yarsk continued. “Took me all of five minutes to download them with this crappy bar HoloNet connection, alongside every message they’d posted.”
Alongside the leaked Death Star plans were messages from Admiral Piett complaining that they had to go and bail out Colonel Dyer and the Endor shield generator garrison, as well as demands for Grand Admiral Thrawn to come off “do not disturb”. The blunder has prompted calls for mass resignations.
“Vader was never fit for this position,” claimed a retired Clone Trooper, who wished to remain anonymous. “I mean first off, you’ve got the anger management issues. Choking people who make the slightest mistake? This isn’t Tatooine. Don’t even get me started on his addiction to that ‘meditation chamber’ of his. His own wife didn’t even want him to get this job. Guess what happened to her?”
Galactic reporters attempted to question the Emperor during his visit to the Death Star II, but were mostly rebuffed.
“Rest assured that the Dark Council will be investigating this matter,” said the Emperor. “It is unacceptable that this breach occurred, and the Bothan scum who read the messages will be held solely responsible and punished for his actions.”
At press time, Grand Moff Tarkin claimed “No classified materials” were contained within the leaked plans.
MINNEAPOLIS — In a shocking development, defunct gaming publication Game Informer is being brought back after GameStop traded it in to Gunzilla Games for $3 worth of credit.
“It was just collecting dust so we figured we may as well trade it in and put whatever we get towards buying something else to ruin,” said GameStop CFO Thomas Levendale. “I was honestly shocked at how much we got for it. I mean what kind of sucker gives three full dollars of credit for someone’s used product? I’m not complaining though, now we have $3 credit to get whatever we want. Dobson in sales suggested we use the credit to fund improvements to our customer experience and he was promptly fired.”
Matthias Price, a spokesperson for Gunzilla Games spoke to reporters about the deal.
“We’re very happy to have Game Informer back up and running under our watch. GameStop came to us looking to trade it in and we gave them a perfectly good deal. I mean we have to make shelf space for it, and try to sell copies so $3 was more than fair. We’re going to make much more money now than we would have if we had given them something close to the real value.”
When asked if the company’s interest in NFTs and the blockchain would eventually affect Game Informer, Price immediately left.
GameStop customers are excited over what the company can do with their newfound wealth.
“This is such a big opportunity for them,” said frequent GameStop customer Jeff Hawkins. “Not many people get three whole dollars of trade credit, they have enough to completely transform the store. Maybe now they even have the budget to get those space wasting video games out of there. They can put so many more Funko Pops and other nick nacks on the shelves now.
At press time, GameStop reportedly used their newfound credit to stock an extra pair of socks no one will ever buy.
LOS ANGELES — The cast and creative team behind HBO’s adaptation of “The Last of Us” hit the red carpet on Monday for the series’ season two premiere. Newcomer to the series, Kaitlyn Dever, turned heads in an adorable bulletproof vest from Gucci.
Dever spoke with reporters about portraying Abby and her excitement for the upcoming season.
“I can’t wait for the fans to see the season,” Dever said, her eyes darting back-and-forth across the walkway. “Abby is a tough chick, and I just hope I brought her justice. I think fans will be happy with my portrayal of her. I had to bring my A-game, especially with Bella and Pedro there, killing it constantly.”
Reporters attempted to ask Dever about online backlash but were interrupted when a nearby car horn sent her diving for the concrete.
“Nervous? No, I am not nervous at all. Why, what have you heard,” Devers said, picking herself up off the ground. “The internet has been nothing but supportive. I have no reason to believe my turn as Abby will change any of that. Hey, do you see that guy? The one over there with the dirty PS3-era Last of Us T-shirt. Is he staring at us?”
Things at the premiere took a turn when the unidentified, odious man hopped the press line and charged toward Dever. His attack came to a screeching halt when Laura Bailey, the original voice actor for Abby, appeared out of nowhere in full Armani riot gear and clubbed the man to death. Bailey then joined Dever for her interview.
“We shouldn’t be giving these neckbeards any time,” Bailey said, after complimenting Dever’s bulletproof vest. “It is enough that art is being jeopardized by content mongrels who are looking to make a buck off the very content they’re shitting on. I am here to support Kaitlyn and all the artists who made this night possible. If I beat the life out of an annoying gamer along the way, that’s just an added bonus.”
At press time, Bailey gifted Dever an Armani riot shield as they entered the theater.
Claim: The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) issued the following statement on X: “A recent audit of the United States Military uncovered a team of spearmen who have been stationed somewhere in the arctic for over 1,000 years. This dramatic oversight is just one of many examples of unqualified, inactive workers taking advantage of our government’s negligence, costing taxpayers millions in gold.”
Rating: Mixed
A review of historical military records does much to explain the presence of these arctic-based spearmen, who are, as DOGE claims, still on the US military payroll.
Around 723 BCE, the United States did send a small brigade of stick-wielding warriors into an ancient ruin found in what is now Durham, New Hampshire. These warriors did, in fact, find spears and arm themselves. The United States then sent these spearmen on an expedition to the Arctic in order to, in the words of President George Washington, “Look around and see if there’s any stuff there.”
After approximately seven centuries of “looking around for stuff” in the Arctic, the spearmen in question received orders, in a missive from President Washington in 2 AD, to “stay in one place and just sleep a lot until we need you to do something.” The US military, by the admission of current President George Washington, “kind of forgot they were up there.”
However, although the spearmen in question have continued to receive approximately one gold piece per year, no evidence exists that this military presence has cost taxpayers “millions” in gold, particularly when compared to similar overseas military bases, many of which cost tens of thousands of gold pieces per year. The “Poke Boys,” as they are colloquially called in online spaces, are inexpensive enough that the US does not require taxpayer money to cover their salaries. Their pay is covered by tributes from the city-state of Zanzibar.
When reached for comment, one of the spearmen just wrote back “It’s so cold, please let me die.”
rp_downtown_v2 – Elected representatives and political pundits alike were stunned today, as the Garry’s Mod roleplay server GovernmentMod succeeded in passing dozens of bills to improve the life of the server’s citizens.
“I mean, that’s what we’re here to do at the end of the day,” explained President xX_FillibustDeezNuts_Xx. “The people of the server elected us to do cool shit, and we figured that’s a pretty good way to keep winning elections.”
“No one liked paying every time they died, so we got rid of that,” the President continued. “A bunch of people got pissed when they found the richest players holed up with a bunch of money printers, so we threw them in jail and took their cash. Even the fascist uprising didn’t last for too long. Turns out banning those fuckers is a net good for society.”
Put the Money in the Bag!, the President’s party, was elected on a far-left platform of universal healthcare, free daycare for any player under eighteen hours of playtime, and headcrab-free sewers. Speaking with the playerbase, the reception has been massively positive.
“He’s done so much for us,” said SupremeCourter, a gun salesman with a Father Grigori player model. “Just the other week, I was walking on the pavement and ended up falling through the map. Talk about dangerous. I told my representative, and they passed a law to patch it out the next day. Had a similar incident in real life, and I got screamed at for pushing ‘fifteen minute cities’ or some crap.”
However, not all reception toward GovernmentMod has been positive. Elected representatives across the political spectrum have come out swinging against this virtual world.
“This is ridiculous,” said Gavin Newsom, host of the This is Gavin Newsom Podcast. “These teenagers might think they can play government, but they’re clearly behind us in a bunch of these statistics. We beat them in lobbyist funding, we beat them in the fewest bills passed in a legislative session, and we absolutely crushed them in tolerance towards Nazis. Time for these brats to learn about the real world.”
At press time, the United States Senate passed a bi-partisan bill banning “Garry Mod” from running for office.
WASHINGTON — The recent declassification of all records relating to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination has revealed that the event was motivated entirely by Lee Harvey Oswald’s lifelong obsession with violent video games, historians announced.
“For the first time ever, we’re able to look back on that day with almost perfect clarity,” explained Owen Císte-Torthaí, professor of history at the University of Maryland. “All the ridiculous speculation and conspiracy theories can finally be put to rest. We know exactly why Kennedy was assassinated, and like every act of violence, it’s because of video games.”
A recently revealed FBI profile of Oswald found his obsession began in childhood, where he frequently visited the penny arcades of the 1940s.
“Oh yeah, there was this old driving game Lee loved,” recalled Edmund Ford, Oswald’s last surviving childhood friend. “One day in ‘49 we were at it together, and he said ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if instead of a road, the screen showed two people fighting?’ He went on like this for a while, describing the dream game in his head, and … look, it was Mortal Kombat, all right? I don’t mean it was kinda like Mortal Kombat, I could’ve sworn he said ‘Earthrealm’ at some point.”
As he got older, Oswald’s obsession with this theoretical technology worsened, the report found.
“In 1956, Oswald joined the Marines, since it was the closest he could get at the time to playing a military FPS,” continued Císte-Torthaí. “Two years after that, Oswald used his military connections to visit Brookhaven National Laboratory and play the early video game Tennis for Two. This was not a violent video game, but it was a video game, and it had the exact effect on his fragile young mind that you’d expect. A simple sports game can’t drive a man to kill, but betraying his country? That would make sense. By 1959, Oswald would defect to the Soviet Union.”
Oswald was unhappy in the Soviet Union, complaining about “no places of recreation,” and returned to the United States in 1962, shortly after the invention of the game Spacewar!
“As soon as he heard about Spacewar!, Oswald had to go back,” said Císte-Torthaí. “It wasn’t a fantasy anymore, someone made a video game. A violent video game, where you blow things up. As soon as Oswald shot a digital spaceship and watched it explode, he knew he had to do the same thing to the President’s head.”
Equally revealing are the newly-declassified records of Oswald’s personal correspondence in the days leading up to the assassination.
“Oh yeah, the whole video game industry basically exists because Oswald asked really hard for it,” confirmed Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, reading from a yellowed piece of paper. “He sent me this when I was in college. ‘Dear Nolan, please invent a video game company called Atari and make a game where two tanks shoot each other. It’ll kick ass. Love, Lee Harvey Oswald. P.S. I’m gonna kill JFK.’ And it wasn’t just me, he sent letters to all kinds of people. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, those were all him. He also complained a lot to Jack Ruby about how his nightclubs didn’t have any video games in them, so, you know … another mystery solved there.”
At press time, historians had discovered a 19th-century pinball machine with John Wilkes Booth’s high score.
HOUSTON — Late boxer and entrepreneur George Foreman’s casket will be tilted to allow rendered fat to drain out of the bottom and into a separate tray, sources confirm.
“This is an option we offer to our more health-conscious decedents,” said Barry Carroll, funeral home director. “The patented fat-burning technology allows our patrons to experience a leaner afterlife without losing any of that heavenly flavor. You simply close the lid, and the casket does all the work. It couldn’t be any simpler.”
Employees at Carroll’s funeral home noted that there were downsides to the unique casket.
“Oh God, cleaning that thing is a nightmare,” said Tracy Leary, who has worked at Carroll Funeral Home for six years. “Some of the older models let you take the lining off of the top and bottom of the coffin, which makes it a little easier. Still, it never really fits into the sink, no matter how you twist it. It’s also non-stick, so you’re not supposed to use the rough side of the sponge, but the soft side doesn’t do anything. To be honest, I usually tell myself that I’m going to clean it the next morning, and by the time I would’ve gotten around to it, they’ve already buried the stiff. It’s a win-win.”
Christina Holmes, a funeral industry analyst, criticized the Foreman casket.
“None of the supposed benefits of this method of interment have been proven,” said Holmes. “I don’t know where this myth started that fat is unhealthy for you after you die, but from a scientific standpoint, it doesn’t seem like there’s any truth to it. By removing an inordinate amount of fat, you’re really just making an extra-dry corpse, not a healthy corpse. That doesn’t sound like paradise to me.”
At press time, patrons at Foreman’s funeral were seen arguing about whether or not the service should take longer after the “warm-up” light on his coffin came back on.
Serenity Forge, despite its name, seems to specialize in games that are meant to upset or disturb you. It’s probably best known for publishing the premium edition of Doki Doki Literature Club in 2021 or for the extended cut of Slay the Princess, but it’s got a full roster of high weirdness on offer. It takes a very particular company to release a physical edition of LISA: The Painful.
Centum (Latin for “hundred”)was one of several new games that was half-hidden in Serenity Forge’s booth at last year’s PAX West, and it was easily the least suited to a convention environment. No one involved in its production was around to explain anything about it, and Serenity Forge’s representative seemed just as confused as I was. For a minute I wondered if, in keeping with the game’s general theme, even Serenity Forge didn’t know what it was or why it was at their booth.
As far as I can tell, Centum is a point-and-click adventure which is initially presented as a long-lost, half-broken computer game from roughly 1992. You begin as an unnamed, unseen prisoner in a cell somewhere in a doomed city, and who is evaluated every night by a judge who always accuses you of lying no matter what you say. Your only potential allies are a malformed rat who lives inside the wall and something that might be a ghost.
On the other hand, you can alt-tab to a computer desktop at any time, which contains a number of encoded documents and a couple of .bat files, one of which has the power to start your prison stay over from scratch. Another warns you that you’ve only got 3 days before the simulation stops.
Right from the start, Centum features some of the most obtuse puzzles I’ve ever seen. I briefly talked about my personal scale of overall adventure game impenetrability last month in my column on Slender Threads, and the only thing keeping Centum from being a 10 on that scale is that it never gives you that many things that you can do at any given time.
Even so, it often presents the player with no guidelines whatsoever, either mechanically or narratively. I routinely ran into dead ends where I either had to progress by simply experimenting until something worked, or wander around until I hit some invisible trigger.
In the end, that turns out to be part of the point. Centum eventually describes itself, near its endgame, as a series of “inescapable escape rooms.” You aren’t meant to find a way out, and escaping from one prison often leads you to another. Instead, it’s about how you choose to react to a seemingly unwinnable situation, and what you as the player take away from the overall experience.
I’ve seen several games bill themselves as “Lynchian,” most recently Alice’s Lullaby, but Centum is one of the first times I’ve seen a game that really rolled up its sleeves and earned the label. For the first half, there’s some real ambiguity about what’s happening, and why, and who your character actually is. If you stopped at roughly the halfway point, you could make a solid textual argument that Centum is about a decaying virtual world, the last hallucination of a dying programmer, and/or the fugue dream of a depressed shut-in.
It’s almost disappointing when, near its end, it actually slows down to explain much of what’s happened. As confusing as Centum initially is, it wraps up on a straightforward note, and I’m honestly not sure how much that damages the overall experience. It might’ve been better if it had deliberately kept that early sense of ambiguity all the way through. There are still questions after the end, but not as many as I expected.
As it is, Centum is memorable and creepy, but it’s hard to give it any kind of unqualified recommendation. Centum is the sort of project that rides the ragged edge between a visual novel and a game, with some incredible art and dialogue, but its deliberate inaccessibility is an issue. This is meant for a very specific audience, and I’d imagine you already know from context whether or not you’re in it.
On my end, I’m glad it exists, but if I’d been playing it on my own I’d have dropped it after the first 30 minutes. A game that’s deliberately being obtuse to make a point is, at the end of the day, still obtuse.
[Centum, developed by Hack the Publisher and published by Serenity Forge, is now available for PlayStation 4&5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam for $14.99. This column was written using a Steam code sent to Hard Drive by a Serenity Forge representative.]
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