SAN MATEO, Calif. — Investors were relieved today after Roblox confirmed their latest scandal had nothing to do with pedophilia.
“False alarm everyone,” said David Baszucki, Roblox Corporation’s CEO. “Turns out it’s just terrorism. The Internet is home to all sorts of nutjobs sending death threats. Optics-wise, it doesn’t matter nearly as much when we ignore those lunatics as it does when we ignore the rampant spread of pedophiles across our platform.”
Roblox has suffered a turbulent week, from a terrorist attempting to stir up support within its platform, to anti-ICE protests which have sprung up across the game.
“I’ll pepper spray a child,” Baszucki affirmed to a reporter. “If that’s what it takes to put these rebellious brats down, then so be it. We’re willing to throw every resource we have to break the spirits of these children. Otherwise, they might grow up to be caring and empathetic.”
Roblox’s many recent scandals have so far avoided wide-spread scrutiny, but as the brand is known in almost every household across the country, even the government is taking a closer look.
“Rest assured we remain committed to creating safe experiences for children online,” said Ravage Punch, former Guantanamo torturer and current member of the Trump administration. “The kind where they can continue to slave away and make millions for the corporate overlords running the show. ”
At press time, the Supreme Court affirmed that acts of violence against ICE roleplayers constituted a felony.
KYOTO, Japan — Diddy Kongs are not conceived through conventional intercourse, a fact announced by Nintendo while promoting their upcoming title, “Donkey Kong Bananza.”
“Diddy was not born of woman-Kong,” said Shigeru Miyamoto, renowned creator of the Donkey Kong franchise. “He is an artificial biological construct, designed and created to serve a very specific purpose. That is why he is the only Kong with a tail. The complex gene-editing computers contained in a DNA Kaudulizer Barrel—DK Barrel, for short—are able to add that appendage to the standard Kong phenotype. All the barrels need is a teaspoon or two of donor genetic material.”
Some fans were upset with how they believed this information conflicted with existing Donkey Kong lore.
“Listen, gorilla-type Kongs canonically have very short penises,” said Martin Gardner, a longtime fan of the series. “They have a baculum, or penis bone, that is only about an inch long. Even if they wanted to hump a DK Barrel, they would never make it past the rim. Ironically, Diddy is a spider monkey-type Kong, without a baculum at all. He would have no problem doinking the barrel that supposedly incubated him.”
Nintendo expert Ellen Benchley noted that this type of lore was not uncommon for the company’s properties.
“Mario, Luigi, and Peach race aside infant versions of themselves in Mario Kart,” said Benchley. “How is that possible, outside of advanced cloning techniques? How many times has Samus had her DNA altered by outside sources to justify game mechanics? Zelda and Link just keep popping up throughout the timeline, looking exactly the same, like magic? I’m just saying, every time Donkey Kong throws a barrel, an identical Diddy appears. Just because the instruction manual doesn’t mention that the Kongs are fucking the barrels doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”
At press time, Sega had declined to respond to rumors that Sonic was seen copulating with the One-Up Video Monitors in the Green Hill Zone.
BOSTON — A serious medical emergency occurred this past weekend after a Boston Dynamics robotic dog named Spot got into an unattended Ziplock baggie of flash drives, sources confirm.
“We knew something wasn’t right when he unexpectedly went into sleep mode and leaked oil all over the carpet,” said college student and new dog owner Sarah Clark. “Those thumb drives were just for some recreational activities, I had no idea Spot would be able to unzip my backpack and open the plastic bag they were in, I swear I’m a responsible pet owner.”
The 22 year old was in tears as she rushed her electronic canine into the 24 vet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Robotic Veterinary Practice, whose veterinary doctors were able to perform a live saving debug.
“It’s not the first time we’ve had a case like this, they practically teach a whole unit about it in undergrad, that and what to do when an HDMI cord is wrapped around your dogs neck is pretty much robotic veterinary 101,” says Brionna Martin, the Chief Veterinarian at MIT’s emergency vet clinic. “99% of the time the dog’s anti-virus software catches any problems, all that’s left after that is a simple reboot and two day charge.”
Boston Dynamics, the manufacturers of Spot, released a swift response statement stressing the importance of safety and responsibility that comes with being a robotic dog owner.
“We try to urge anyone who is considering buying a dog to take the preventative measures to avoid anything like this happening,” says Boston Dynamics’ Public Relations Officer, Dylan McDonald. “Low to the ground water features, an unsecure wifi network, and even a single grape can be a death sentence to our delicate pups.”
At press time, Spot has made a full recovery and the whole ordeal has encouraged his owner, Sarah, to kick flash drives and get sober.
Last week’s column reminded me that I’d been meaning to play Dragon Ruins II. It’s been out for a few months now, but I liked the first one enough that I wanted to see what the developers had done with the second.
It turned out that I got exactly what I wanted. DR2 is only slightly more complex than the original game, and most of it’s in the service of adding more to do. It’s also a little more difficult, but if you’re in the market for a throwback game like this in the first place, that’s probably not an issue.
Like the first game, DR2 is a minimalist spin on early first-person dungeon crawlers. Most of the attendant stat-juggling and resource management has been automated or firmly shoved under the hood, including combat. Your job is to explore dungeons, collect gold, and gradually upgrade your team.
DR2 is set 1,000 years after the events of the original Dragon Ruins, long after all the dragons have disappeared. You play as a group of young adventurers who’re out to find the dragons’ old lairs, and their rumored stashes of untouched treasure. You’ll have to work your way up to making that dragon gold, however, so you start out with a handful of penny-ante mercenary jobs.
DR2 features the same gameplay as DR, but expands its scope. The entirety of the first game took place inside a single wireframe dungeon, while the second features a dozen 3D maps. You’ve also got a number of new ways to customize and improve your characters, such as actual equipment slots, passive abilities, and adjusting the party’s formation.
The start of the game is about as tough as DR2 ever gets. You don’t earn a lot of gold, your characters are made from paper, and everything has an exorbitant price tag. You have to stick with it until you can regularly clear dungeons in a single run, which lets you finally earn enough money to reliably upgrade and level your characters. It’s the same power curve as games like the original Wizardry, but DR2 compresses it into minutes rather than hours.
It does take longer to get rolling than it did in the original DR, primarily because DR2 gives you more to do. If the first game was a sort of idle clicker in dungeon-crawler format, DR2 is an actual dungeon crawler with streamlined mechanics.
That does lead to what might be its single real problem: you can only really shove so much of a game’s math under the hood before it starts to get unwieldy. DR2 could use some more in-game explanations of what its various stats actually do, so you have some idea of what you could or should be building towards. I get that it’s part of the overall formula, as many of the games DR2 is based on were also made as impenetrable black boxes, but it was just as obnoxious there.
Despite that, DR2 is just as absorbing as the first game was. It’s really leaned into the “cozy” aspect of DR, especially with its soundtrack, which has been stuck in my head for a few days now. Once you’ve got a decent party going, DR2 becomes an excellent pick-up-and-play game. You can put 15 or 20 minutes into it, clear a dungeon, buy some upgrades, and chill out for a while. Granted, that quick vibe check does necessarily involve wholesale demon slaughter, but self-care can take many forms.
Dragon Ruins 2 is more ambitious than its predecessor, which is both a strength and a slight drawback. It’s still fast and accessible at its core, but it’s added a couple of layers of new systems that can’t help but slow down the process. It’s still more Dragon Ruins, and I’ve had fun with it as an end-of-the-day chill-out game, but it’s lost a step or two as it’s become more complicated. – Thomas Wilde
[Dragon Ruins II, developed and published by Graverobber Foundation, is now available for PC via Steam and GOG for $9.99. This column was written using a Steam copy of the game purchased by Hard Drive.]
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Let me make something clear at the outset: I am an absolute lore junkie. I can probably tell you more about the story of the early King of Fighters or Street Fighter games than some of their developers or writers. I really enjoy engaging with the story of a game, especially when that isn’t key to enjoying the actual gameplay. I really admire The Fool’s Apprentice for what it tries to do with its lore and story, even as it fails as a video game.
The Fool’s Apprentice is the newest game in the Danse Cosmology World, a fantastical, low-tech setting built around the movements of the stars and the sigils of strange, mystical runes. I’m extrapolating that from the other two games and a novel that are advertised in one of three locations on TFA’s starting screen.
The game makes it clear: you are a presence in the world, despite the Sims-like overhead view and indirect control of your students/apprentices. The cursor is your ‘invisible hand’ that can select objects, as well as interact more directly with 5 different spells: telekinesis, mind-control, alacrity, force field, and disintegration. These are used to interact more directly with students and furniture, and right at the start: more information about them wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Reading runes to access power is an interesting take on where magickal energy comes from in this world, and a lot of thought has been put into the setting and the various mechanics of how and why things are the way they are. However, the part where it needs to be a video game rather than a novel is also the part where it utterly falls to pieces.
Bluntly: there’s no manual save and barely any auto-save feature. In a sim/building game. There are three main resources to be gathered: Arcanum, the main source of exchange for goods and services; Influence, the perception of the surrounding city toward your establishment; and finally Research, the hardest to acquire by far, obtained from exceptional students and goings-on within the walls of the Conservatory. It’s also the only progress that triggers a save. Every other scrap of progress resets between sessions.
To try and read some semblance of sense into this decision, it feels like the developer wanted the game to have a roguelike element where every “run” was distinct and unique, but even the most brutal roguelikes, except ones that are intentionally channelling the spirit of the original Rogue, will allow some kind of suspended save. This has no such option; every run is only as long as your session, giving the game the sense of a Zen garden’s impermanence. But it’s a plate-spinning magic school sim.
There’s a cleverness to the moment-to-moment writing that feels like it wants to mine humor from the mundanity of the horror of existing in a world where disintegration spells and thieving goblins are the norm. Without a core conceit or anyone to root for, however, the wry irony just comes off as limp, edgy social commentary.
There are the pieces of an interesting game here, and the structure of an interesting world. It may be that if you’ve played the previous two games and read the accompanying novel, this all makes more sense, but this is a crowded field. Other games like The Witcher effectively refer back to external source material without requiring that you engage with them. The story in The Fool’s Apprentice feels like a pamphlet for a larger world rather than anything that could stand alone.
There’s some really good ideas here, but the game needed to be run past testers and casual players. It has the hallmarks of being created in an insular way, similar to how Shenmue developer Yu Suzuki proudly talks about never playing any video games to avoid being influenced by trends. This can lead to obvious pitfalls being overlooked from a lack of experience or knowledge, and that very much feels like what happened here.
I admire the moxie of someone creating a wholecloth fantasy world and developing multimedia inroads around it; it’s something I think a lot of writers have dreamed of doing. Good ideas, though, often come with severe downsides as they require more support to flourish. The approach here is scattershot: it has plenty of ideas, but none of them are directed. It winds up feeling like an inside joke in a language I don’t speak. – Corey Arder
[The Fool’s Apprentice, developed and published by The Planar Danse, is now available for PC via Steam for $16.99. This column was written using a Steam code sent to Hard Drive by a PR representative for The Planar Danse.]
LOS ANGELES — When he isn’t out in the field harassing and forcefully escorting Hispanic people into an unmarked van, ICE Officer Jackson Kent spends his free time playing Final Fantasy XIV where he harrasses players who have traveled to his Data Center, sources in his Free Company have confirmed.
“He never does any content with us. He just runs around the hub cities looking for people with the Voyager title and just harasses them non-stop,” claimed Kent’s FC leader George Starr. “He’s even done it with some of our own Free Company members when we’re playing with our friends from other Data Centers. He’ll just follow us, hop around in front of the Voyager, send threatening tells, stuff like that. We tell him to stop and just play the game but then he starts harassing us too.”
When asked about his in game behavior, Kent maintains that he’s doing it for the good of his Data Center.
“These people come into our Data Center, they don’t contribute anything good. They’re not bringing their best. They cause overpopulation, they steal spots in raids from the hard working players of this Data Center. So I dedicate myself and sacrifice my game time to get them out of here. I don’t raid, I don’t do dungeons, I don’t go to the Gold Saucer, I don’t even engage in the true endgame of fashion, well besides this sweet face covering I gave my character. I don’t do any of it because I’m the only one heroic and brave enough to get these DC travelers to go back where they came from. Only once they’re all gone will I start to actually play the content.
Players from Kent’s Data Center have rallied against him and around the Voyagers whom he harrasses.
“The Voyagers are an essential part of a healthy Data Center. Without them we’d have longer queue times for content and the hub cities would feel more barren. They help to make this place what it is. Natural born Data Center characters playing together with Travelers who come to help us get through Savage Raids even at off hours. This guy has no place in our community, he doesn’t even play any of the content, he contributes nothing useful. We’ve reported him to Square Enix multiple times but all they’ve done is tell us they’re on our side without actually doing anything to help.”
At press time, Square Enix leadership has stated they sent Kent a strongly worded letter encouraging him to change his behavior.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced a landmark trade deal which would give the United States exclusive mineral rights for anything extracted from Wario’s Gold Mine, the Bureau of Land Management has confirmed.
“We could not think of a greater way to usher in a new era of prosperity than to procure the beautiful gold mines owned by Wario himself. It’s massive folks, let me tell you. The communist far left liberals said don’t do it, you’ll get hit with bats as soon as you go in and there are no guardrails, but we did it anyway folks,” said President Trump. “What a terrific guy Wario, he was kicked out of his castle by that nasty Mario character but made it back to the top by being a savvy businessman and I said that sounds like someone I know. But now we can finally gold plate the entirety of the White House. He truly is a patriot.”
Wario was more than happy to partner with Trump if it meant a steady flow of income.
“Before Trump came to Diamond City to make a deal, things-a not so good. The mine carts veer off the track and the Shy Guys try to unionize! Trump come to Wario and he want to give me loads of cash for mine and some bob-bombs on the side. Plus he want to use my stadium for a rally next week,” said Wario, sitting upon a nine foot high pile of cash. “He take-a me golfing and say he can get Waluigi cushy White House job if I take away the emissions standards for the go kart track in the mine too. This the beginning of a beautiful partnership. Wahahaha!”
The nearby Mushroom Kingdom saw Trump’s deal with Wario as an aggressive tactic to move into the region.
“President Trump called us and demanded we make a deal not only for our gold coins and set up offshore drilling in Dolphin Shoals, all the while making comments about my ass and threatening to make the Mushroom Kingdom the 51st state. I would rather go through with marrying Bowser, and I should mention that even he turned down Trump,” said Princess Peach. “My advisors tell me the United States is in talks to strip mine Mount Wario as well. If Wario is going to let these invaders walk all over us for a couple of bucks, he’s no longer invited to play any sports or board games with us ever again.
At press time, Trump also announced that the Pentagon would be signing a $1.3 billion deal with the Warioware crew to head up America’s cyber security.
MUSHROOM KINGDOM — Waluigi, noted foil of Mario and Luigi, has been arrested after being caught masturbating in public at Cheep Cheep Beach.
“I was doing my morning patrols at Cheep Cheep Beach as usual,” says Police Officer Toad, “when I heard this nasally ‘WAA’. It was disturbingly erotic. I went to investigate and that’s when I found Mr. Waluigi with his overalls off, in sexual congress with himself. He most likely chose that location and time of day, because Cheep Cheeps were extremely active, leaping out of the water and enticing people. That’s usually the reason we catch people here.”
After he called it in, Waluigi was detained by a Lakitu with a fishing pole. Many residents observed the lanky man in the air, waving his arms frantically and screaming “WAA!”
When later reached for comment, Waluigi was indignant.
“First of all, waa. Second, I’ve been under a lot of stress with an upcoming Mario Kart Tournament. It’s a new world with new stakes and… and I needed a release. Third, I don’t have a thing for Cheep Cheeps or their big, beautiful lips.” He then added a disheartened “waa.”
Wendy O. Koopa, Waluigi’s lawyer, is outraged at the MKPD for sex-shaming her client. She went on to suggest that her client’s public amorous display is a symptom of something deeper than just a go-kart race.
“I don’t think I’m talking out of school when I say that Mushroom Kingdom is one of the most sexually repressed nations ever. I mean, nobody fucks around here. And soon, all that sexual build-up has got to go somewhere and it poses a danger for people. Why do you think all those Bob-Ombs just randomly explode?”
A court hearing date has not been disclosed.
At press time, a Chain Chomp was apprehended after it was caught in the middle of choking itself with its own chain in an attempt to reach orgasm.
MONTREAL — Fans of the simulator genre have a new game to look forward to and it’s set to be the most realistic one yet. Game Dev Simulator is set to be the most true-to-life simulator game ever made as it consists solely of browsing Indeed.
“We wanted to give gamers the most accurate recreation possible of what it’s like to be a game developer,” said Lead Designer Travis Strickland moments before he was laid off. “We know that gamers are interested in the specifics of how the games they love are made and what it’s like to work in this industry. Using our collective decades of experience, we were able to really fine tune and perfect this simulator to offer an experience that’s as close to the real thing as possible. Players will be able to spend hours browsing Indeed, filling out applications and never hearing back.” Strickland was escorted out of the building by security before he could continue.
Strickland’s replacement Jason Page broke down what content players can expect from the game.
“Players will be able to enjoy two modes at launch. A campaign mode in which you go through your career as a game dev all the way up until the moment you burn out and take a data entry job instead. Once they’re done that they can enjoy our free play mode which will allow them to play for as long as they want. Simulating the game dev experience of endlessly scrolling Indeed for as long as they want. Post launch we plan to introduce a multiplayer mode where players compete to see who can be the first one to get a job offer. This will also introduce a battle pass with exciting rewards such as pre-written resumes and family members that can get you a nepo hire.” Page was promptly fired and escorted out of the building after he finished.
There has been some controversy over the game’s lack of what some consider the most important part of game development. Getting laid off.
“I’m not going to say it’s never going to happen but for now at least we really wanted to hone in on what the majority of game dev is.” Stated Page’s replacement, Luke O’Reilly. “The fact of the matter is that being laid off, while it is an integral part of game dev, it just doesn’t lend itself well to long term gameplay. Game dev is 90 percent Indeed searching and 10 percent getting laid off and we chose to focus on the 90 percent for this game. Maybe once we all get laid off, the next team can find a way to implement it.”
At press time, Game Dev Simulator has been canceled after the studio was acquired by Microsoft and promptly shut down.
For decades, we’ve seen countless video games objectify the female form with tacky, over-the-top jiggle physics on comically large breasts. Ever since the dawn of 3D graphics, titles like Soulcalibur, Dead or Alive, and Zenless Zone Zero have pandered to young male audiences with childish caricatures of what teenage boys find sexy.
The male-dominated realm of game development has long perpetuated these harmful, unrealistic beauty standards, but studio Hilltop Games has said enough is enough: in their upcoming title Killhammer 3, the breast physics were programmed by a woman.
This unprecedented move was described by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as “a huge victory for feminism.”
We spoke with the visionary behind Killhammer 3’s breast physics: Diana Baker, who herself possesses only a modest bust size. “Yeah, no, I just love being assigned stupid crap like this,” said Baker in a deadpan monotone. “That’s absolutely why I got into game development, so I could help fifteen-year-olds—and grown men with the brains of fifteen-year-olds—jerk off to my work. After all, are you really even gaming if you’re not staring at tits the size of basketballs flop around like a pillowcase in a wind tunnel? I just love my job.”
“Whatever,” she concluded. “At least I’m not working at Blizzard.”
Baker’s male supervisor, Evan D’Andrea, had nothing but praise for his loyal underling.
“Diana’s great. She’s a real broodma—I mean, workhorse. I don’t have to micromanage her at all since she takes feedback really well. For the breast physics, I mostly just told her to crank it way the hell up. If a woman in the game so much as takes a single step, those puppies ought to be slapping the ceiling. Aw yeah, video games are awesome.” D’Andrea then took some time to show off the small figurine collection at his workstation, including characters such as pre-reboot Lara Croft and the Sorceress from Dragon’s Crown.
“Women’s rights are constantly under attack these days,” said Hilltop Games’ male CEO Nicholas Wagner. “That’s why we pay our female employees 90 cents for every dollar we pay a man, well above the national average of 83 cents. It’s also why we have the women at Hilltop tackle sensitive issues like this, so that we can use them as a shield in case of criticism.” Wagner went on to tout the success of throwing female employees under the bus, citing credulous gamers constantly on the search for a woman to blame for absolutely any perceived wrongdoing.
At press time, online right-wing activist Mark “Grummz” Kern posted on X that he was “conflicted” by this development.
SPRINGWOOD, Ohio — Attempted murderer Freddy Dunning-Kruger has overestimated his ability to adequately slay children while they sleep, sources on Elm Street report.
“I kill kids in their dreams. It’s kind of my thing,” Dunning-Kruger reported from the subconscious plane of a psychosexual nightmare. “I’m pretty good at it, too — top 25% of nighttime dream murderers, I’d say. You’d think that if you killed them in their sleep, they would die in real life. It barely works. Half the time they wake up in a puddle of bed piss and I have to kill them from scratch again! And don’t get me started on when they lure me back into reality and murder me instead. Murdering a murderer who you hate because he’s a murderer? It’s so hypocritical.”
Dunning-Kruger’s survivors have noted patterns of inefficiency and shoddy work in his murder plots, despite his high-level self-assessment.
“Freddy talked a lot without really doing anything,” Dunning-Kruger survivor Patricia Granger admitted, apparently confused by Dunning-Kruger’s lack of ability. “He wanted to torture me with my deepest fears. I’m really only scared of public speaking, though, so he just sat in the audience while I gave a PowerPoint about the history of Ohio. He wiggled his knife glove at me a little bit, but I don’t think he was even trying to scare me: he was trying to check his watch. By the time he got up to kill me, my alarm had gone off and I was safe.”
Investigators familiar with Dunning-Kruger’s crimes claim his incompetence is common for paranormal serial killers.
“Yeah, Freddy, I’ve heard of him. Trying to murder kids in their dreams. Real bad at it. Seen a few cases like it before,” recalled crime scene investigator Elijah Landsman as he smoked in an office he was no longer allowed to smoke in. “They set unrealistic expectations — high quarterly goals for their murder quotas. Always think they’re gonna kill a whole group of horny teenagers or some shit, but at least one gets away — usually a girl, usually white. They try to look all macho with a knife glove or a hockey mask, but the form breaks the function; they can’t see jack shit through those masks. Can’t say I’m surprised that this guy is failing. He needs to nail the basics before he can add the pizzazz.”
At press time, Dunning-Kruger was seen entering a nightmare about a forgotten final exam.
