REEDSPORT, Ore. — The nationally syndicated radio show “Delilah” has publicly banned Stardew Valley resident Clint for an unprecedented amount of song requests and inappropriate behavior.
“I really can’t believe this is happening,” said Clint in a now deleted X post. “It’s frankly a violation of my First Amendment rights. I would only call maybe a few dozen times a night to hear ‘Dreaming With a Broken Heart’ by John Mayer. A MASTERPIECE! Maybe one day she will hear it…”
While Clint says he is adamant about keeping the subject of his desires secret, he has reportedly said her full legal name on the air many times.
“Sometimes he would disguise his voice so I wouldn’t know it was him,” recounted the radio show’s longtime phone screener. “He got really good at some of the characters he would do, and it would slip by me. There was a blustery British man, a blue-collar Bostonian, and one time there was a really tasteless Chinese accent. But the longer he would talk on air, it would all fall apart. Especially when he revealed his crush’s full home address and place of work after requesting ‘Jar of Hearts’ by Christina Perri.”
The final straw came two nights ago when Clint slipped by the phone screener yet again, hoping to hear “Every Breath You Take” by The Police.
“He started to go off on another tangent about a farmer in his town that was ruining his life and stealing her away from him,” said Delilah, host of the eponymous program. “But I could hear these wet, slapping sounds in the background between his sobs. Luckily, my producer cut the live feed before he started moaning, ‘Emily, oh, Emily.’”
While Clint is banned for life on “Delilah”, this incident drew the attention of radio’s porta-potty “Loveline”, where Clint has been offered to appear as a paid, weekly guest.
HYRULE CASTLE — Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, the recently deposed King of Hyrule, expressed his desire for the usurper Ganondorf to usher the kingdom into an age of prosperity while promising to offer no resistance to the incoming ruler’s ascent to power.
“First of all, I’d like to wish Ganondorf congratulations on conquering the kingdom and overthrowing me,” said King Daphnes. “We’re looking forward to a smooth transition. Regardless of the times that I called him the King of Thieves, said he had the morals of an alley-remlit, or claimed that he would plunge our land into eternal darkness should he take the throne, I think he means well and hope that he will do a good job as our head of state.”
Sage of Earth and vocal Daphnes supporter Laruto expressed her disapproval of Ganondorf.
“We may have lost the battle, but we will not lose the war,” said the Zora sage, despite previously writing that the ascendency of Ganondorf would mean, “the end of Hyrule as we know it.” “We just have to keep fighting. They don’t realize how strong we are when we work together. Please, consider donating a few rupees to my new PAC, Tri-RESIST. I promise to keep a vigilant watch over our kingdom until a hero arises.”
Sturgeon, a scholar and political analyst from Outset Mountain, listed the reasons that he thought Ganondorf’s efforts proved successful.
“Daphnes focused too much on cultural issues, like protecting the rights of Zora who are covered and feathers and prefer flying to swimming,” said Sturgeon. “Also, no one bought into that climate change hoax he kept talking about. Obviously, the sea isn’t going to suddenly rise. On the other hand, Ganondorf focused on pocketbook issues that matter deeply to Hylians, like the price of Hyoi Pears and the internment of girls with pointed ears. His message really struck a chord with the median Bokoblin voter, who felt abandoned by the Royal Family.”
At press time, Ganondorf had ordered the immediate execution of King Daphnes and all of Hyrule’s sages.
Dungeon Inn is a surprisingly hardcore game that’s masquerading as a casual-friendly “cozy life sim.” It initially looks like one of a thousand indies that’s trying to horn in on Animal Crossing’s turf, with colorful graphics and cheerful animal sidekicks, but you can’t get through the first in-game month without being an accessory to murder.
Dungeon Inn, now available in Steam Early Access, is a high fantasy pastiche as seen through the eyes of a small Korean dev team. It’s probably easiest to call it a tower defense game, where you have to keep two feuding groups of adventurers happy without ever letting them meet.
In its world, an entire industry has been built around exploring a dungeon that you never see. Two separate companies, Port City’s Sea Guild and Highland City’s Mountain Guild, regularly send adventurers to that dungeon in search of loot. The two guilds are in open conflict, and when their members see one another, they fight to the death.
Sara is a young entrepreneur who makes a living by selling adventuring supplies to the guilds, and goes to great pains to not let either guild know that she does business with them both. One night, she and her partners Butter and Bami are driven into a cave by a sudden thunderstorm, where they end up face to face with a dragon. Before it eats them, Sara negotiates a contract: if the dragon lets them go, and loans them the services of a few of its wisp employees, they’ll pay the dragon a regular monthly tribute.
Now that she’s got to make dragon money, Sara comes up with a dangerous plan. She, Butter, Bami, and the wisps renovate an old ruin into an inn, which is conveniently located halfway between both cities and the dungeon. It’s an irresistible place for adventurers to rest, drink, and resupply. Due to the guilds’ feud, however, Sara must find a way to serve both of them at once.
Dungeon Inn plays out over the course of several in-game months, with each session split into a 5-day, 20-turn week. Over the course of that week, a procession of adventurers journey from their respective cities to the dungeon, and may or may not stop at the inn. Your goal is to draw in as many adventurers as possible while never letting them meet.
If they do run into one another outside the inn, it’s on sight, in a mechanic borrowed from auto-battlers. In a perfect world, two evenly-matched adventurers fight to a DKO; otherwise, you have to decide whether or not to influence the battle. Any surviving guild members may get suspicious about your inn, and if they conclude it’s a trap set by the other guild, your game ends on the spot.
It’s easier, when possible, to simply keep the guilds from meeting one another at all. You can do that by setting up a series of distractions along the road to influence their movements, such as a gambling wheel or a food stall, which can keep adventurers occupied for a few crucial turns. You only have 4 wisps to work with, however, so you have to be careful to work within your capabilities.
As you get further into the game, you also gain a number of extra options that are based around your characters’ individual talents. Sara can visit the cities to advertise, Bami can play the “polite butler” card to distract an adventurer for a turn, and Butter is both a talented chef and a street fighter who can change the course of a fight by himself. All three of them can also step in to manage various random events that might pop up, like using Sara to fast-talk an angry customer.
Once you’re into the third week or so, Dungeon Inn is largely about keeping all these plates spinning at once. It takes it easy on you for the first hour, but rapidly introduces random events, new objectives, and other assorted complications. At the same time, you have to keep an eye on your bottom line to make sure you’re bringing in enough cash to keep the dragon happy at the end of the month.
If you perform well, you earn tokens you can use to upgrade the inn, which adds more facilities to bring in more customers. If you don’t, you either get eaten by a dragon or run out of town by angry adventurers. It’s turn-based, so it’s not a question of reflexes or timing, but you still end up with a lot on your plate in any given turn of Dungeon Inn.
Obvious disclaimer: this is an Early Access game, so much of what I’m about to say only applies to the version that I’ve played (0.5.241115). As such, this isn’t a full review, as Dungeon Inn isn’t finished yet.
As it is, it’s simpler to play Dungeon Inn than it is to explain it. Even with the relative complexity of managing your resources vs. your customers, it’s easy to pick up, and it doles out new tools and mechanics at a reasonable pace. You can play through a single in-game week in about 20 minutes, which makes it a great title to launch when you don’t have a lot of time to play.
If it’s got one real issue at time of writing, it’s that sometimes its math doesn’t work out. Dungeon Inn seems to be built around a pure random number generator, which determines the type, number, and quality of adventurers that show up in any given week. Your overall weekly/monthly goals don’t change between runs, but you might have to juggle wildly different groups of incoming customers.
On casual difficulty, your objectives are lenient enough that this isn’t a big deal, although you might still have a few close calls or fail a couple of optional goals. On the more challenging difficulty, you’re sometimes doomed to failure regardless of your decisions. Your only real option, which the game doesn’t tell you, is to back out to the main menu and hope for a better roll of the dice on a second attempt. It’s a surprisingly apt metaphor for late-stage capitalism, but a frustrating video game.
If it pays more attention to its game balance, Dungeon Inn has potential as the next big idle clicker game. I’m surprised it’s on PC at all, but it’s hard to imagine its UI working on a mobile device. If you want something to throw onto your Steam Deck to kill 20 minutes at a time, and you’re burned out on Vampire Survivors, this isn’t a bad option. It’s got a nice dark core underneath all its cozy vibes.
[Dungeon Inn, developed by Cat Society and published by Spiral Up Games, is now available for $12.99 in Steam Early Access. This column was written using a Steam code sent to Hard Drive by a Spiral Up PR representative.]
GENEVA — After recent events across the video game industry, Nintendo has decided enough is enough. A representative from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has reported that Nintendo has decided to file a patent for the development of any video game.
“Of course this is very legal. We make the best games ever according to everyone in the world. It’s only fair that we get a cut of every single game that comes out for now on,” said Eric Brady, the head of legal council for Nintendo America in a statement on the legitimacy of this patent.
The parent in question lists details of what they consider covered under Nintendo’s intellectual property.
Any game with a main character.
Any game that uses buttons to play.
Any game that requires a power source to play.
Any game that requires code to create.
WIPO representative Alfred Nilsson was asked by reporters if this patent was enforceable and gave the following response.
“Oh absolutely,” Nilsson said, wearing a tie with a Triforce on it. “Have you played Tears of the Kingdom? Anyone that makes a game like that deserves to be the ruler of all gaming.”
Consumers appear to be mixed on the issue. Taking to social media to share their thoughts.
“I just think it’s unfair that someone could make a better Pokémon game than GameFreak,” wrote user TrainerRizz on the Nintendo subreddit. “They should have applied to GameFreak to help make their game better. I hear a lot of people saying this patent is insane and bad for gaming but the best thing for gaming is to let Nintendo do whatever they want, they make Mario and Zelda after all and that’s so much more important than anything else in the industry.”
At press time, the WIPO has stated that they expect to notarize this patent the day before the official ruling of Nintendo’s lawsuit against Pocketpair.
CLEVELAND — The Clark family’s Thanksgiving dinner was rescued from a potential racist tirade by family patriarch Phillip after the Paramount series Yellowstone was brought up by cousin Jeffrey thereby diffusing the situation.
“It was really dicey there for a minute but cousin Jeffrey saved the day,” said Phillip’s daughter Samantha in an Instagram post. “I don’t even remember what we were talking about that caused the conversation to pivot to the election but I was ready for the whole day to be ruined as per usual. Thank god for cousin Jeffrey because before my dad could even get the word “illegals” out of his mouth, Jeff asked if anyone had caught up on Yellowstone. It’s like a switch flipped in all the older men of the family.”
Samantha’s brother Eric commented on his sister’s post to further praise Jeffrey’s brave actions.
“As soon as Grandpa shouted ‘those damn dems’ completely unprompted I was prepared for another classic Clark Thanksgiving of arguing and hatred. Uncle Pete started going on about America being made great again and I saw that look in Dad’s eye. We were seconds away from hearing the most racist diatribe of the year. Then BOOM, cousin Jeff brings up Yellowstone and that’s all that they would talk about. Dad, Grandpa and Uncle Pete went on about it for the rest of the night. It was like when you put a toy in front of a crying child.”
Cousin Jeffrey, the hero that he is, responded to the post with grace and humility.
“It was nothing really. The idea was actually given to me by a friend who told me that whenever their dad is about to go on a rant about something they bring up the show Reacher and it completely transfixes them. Like some sort of mental trigger. I see dad standing in front of the TV watching Yellowstone all the time so in the moment I just gave it a shot to see if bringing it up could reign them in.”
At press time, the young members of the Clark family have preemptively subscribed to Paramount+ to have Yellowstone playing on TV during Christmas.
CHICAGO — Local gamer Bill Clay, a noted fan of the Life is Strange series of games, has his friends fearing the worst after he’s reportedly been in a positive emotional state for several days, sources close to the situation have confirmed.
“He’s been really happy for the past few days and it has all of us worried,” said Clay’s friend John in a Bluesky post. “It’s just not like him at all so something must be really really wrong. He’s been happy before sure, but usually only on the day a Life is Strange game releases and it usually passes after an hour and he goes back to being dispirited. He’s been cheery for days, smiling, and talking about how good life is. He hasn’t solemnly muttered ‘Chloe’ once. It’s really sad to see your friend in such a dark place.”
Clay’s friends are used to him having brief bouts of happiness but after they noticed his positive emotional state had remained for days they requested a wellness check for him which they claimed was no help whatsoever.
“We called in a wellness check to help him but the cops told us he was fine and seemed normal and just left it at that.” posted Clay’s friend Holly. “It’s really bad. His playlist has completely shifted from melancholy indie folk to a pop mix. It’s so hard to see your friends like this and I would never wish it upon anyone. The Bill that we know and love is gloomy and always ready to be hurt again. He’s always talking about his memories of Arcadia Bay and grieving Rachel. But now he’s always chipper, he hasn’t wondered how Sean and Daniel are doing in days and when we uttered the phrase ‘partners in time’ he didn’t even tear up. It sucks to see your friend as a shell of who they were. We don’t know how much time he has left.”
The posts went viral among other Life is Strange fans who did their best to try and diagnose Bill so his friends can get him help before it’s too late.
“It sounds like he has Cheerful Delirium,” wrote user PriceField4Evr. “The same thing happened to me a couple years ago when I listened to ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ too many times in a row. It put me in a delirious state where I forgot about the bittersweet sadness of life. You need to bring his mind back before it’s too late but you have to ease him in. Show him a blue butterfly, take a polaroid picture, say ‘hella’ and he’ll snap back.”
At press time, Bill’s friends say that they’re hopeful he will make a full recovery after he broke down crying upon seeing a picture of Oregon.
Since the release of the original Japanese games Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters Green in 1996, Pokémon has become a worldwide phenomenon. Whether you’ve been with the series since the beginning or only picked up the latest entry, you may be surprised to learn there are 1025 different Pokémon. I’ve committed to ranking all of them the ones I remember, from worst to best.
1025. Ackshualee
Worst of the worst. The only moves it knows are retorts like “Technically, there are 1164 counting regional variants, mega evolutions, and gigantamax Pokémon!” and “Charmeleon actually evolves at level 36.”
1024. Rowlet
It knows what it did.
1023. Greymon
Just a lesser Charizard if we’re being real. It doesn’t even have wings, just a goofy helmet.
1022. Trubbish
Literal trash.
1021. Psyduck
Didn’t he have headaches or something? Misty yelled at him a lot. That was funny, I guess.
1020: Snock
One of the early gyms in Pokémon Red and Blue had one of these, I think. Rock snake, very cool. Lower on the list because of its weakness to paper.
…
Are there really 1025 of these things? I don’t even think I could list that many species of actual real life animals. Let’s skip ahead.
10. Whatever This Is
Funny hat, some kind of marble attack, comfortable and easy to wear shorts, and multiple evolutions. And to think some people say Pokémon is out of ideas. The name is on the tip of my tongue. I want to say it’s some kind of tanuki?
9. Pikachu
Pikachu may seem like an obvious choice, like listing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on a list of the best games ever. Yes, he was in the Pokémon cartoon for like a hundred years and is the mascot of the franchise, but I don’t think he lets it go to his head.
8. Weed Cat
Why didn’t we think to make weed jokes until this cat showed up? Adorable and it probably evolves into something neat. Hehehe, Weed Cat.
7. Toad
Some of you may think it’s cheating to put him on this list since he hasn’t been in any of the mainline games since Pokémon Snap, but he’s been there since the beginning and deserves respect.
6. Snorlax
Used as a literal roadblock in some games, Snorlax can be a great figurative roadblock for your opponents. Also, calling your dad “Snorlax” when he’s napping on the couch on a Sunday afternoon is a wicked burn.
5. Charizard
Speaking of wicked burns, what kid didn’t see Charizard on the cover of Pokémon Red back in 1998 and wanted to build a team with a dragon? Yeah, you had to level Charmander up to 46, but it was worth it just to drop a Flamethrower on an unsuspecting opponent. Teach that Bug Catcher not to bother me when I’m just trying to get to the next town.
4. Rathalos
Now this is how you do a Charizard ripoff. This was monster design at its peak. None of that cartoony dragon stuff. Why don’t more Pokémon look like this?
3. Squirtle
Squirtle is a great introduction to water types, starting with the simple Water Gun and later acquiring more powerful moves like…Firehose? Water Beam? Surf was a thing, I remember that.
2. Charmander
After you bought the game with the cool orange dragon on it, you realized you had to pick this thing to get to the dragon. At least it actually had fire attacks.
1. Bulbasaur
Why is Bulbasaur the best? Just look at this little guy! With great moves like Vine Whip and Leech Seed, Bulbasaur is sure to be the workhorse of any new player’s starting party. Until that counter picker Gary Oak cheats by using Charmander.
Like all of you, I can’t get enough Dwayne Johnson. It’s always fun to go to the theater and see his range on the big screen. So when Red One was announced, I was excited. As the premier came closer, I was ready to preorder my ticket. However, a friend of mine gave me insane news. I could actually watch this movie in the comfort of my home right now. According to my friend they cancelled the theatrical release and sent it straight to Netflix.
After watching the full film from the comfort of my couch whilst browsing Instagram, I have to say I think my friend was confused. This film seemed very different from Red One. This was about a strong dude and a wisecracking sidekick who travel the world to find artifacts, not a strong dude and wisecracking sidekick who travel the world to find Santa. The wisecracking sidekick that makes 4th wall breaking jokes is played by Ryan Reynolds, not Chris Evans. And the different exotic green screen backgrounds they go to every 15 minutes of the film barely have any snow.
I mean sure, this film has multiple fight scenes where The Rock shows off his muscles like his other films. And it may share the same jokes as his other films, including Red One hopefully. Sure this film has a good guy team up with a bad guy to save the day like Red One. And sure, this film’s Rotten Tomatoes score is nearly identical to Red One’s. At least at the time of writing this. But this is completely different from Red One. There isn’t even a Christmas theme.
I would like to apologize to the Dwayne Johnson fans out there. I can’t believe I was tricked like this. I am sorry I couldn’t experience the uniqueness of Red One in time for publishing. That being said, I give Red Notice a 10/10.
In the weeks since the election, the Democrats have been scrambling to figure out just what went wrong. How did they, a party that supports a genocide, is tone deaf to the needs of the working class and is completely inept at their job, lose to a party who has all the same faults with the addition of thinking Hitler made some good points? Like any good political party who has the best interests of the people at their heart, they’ve spent every day since their loss looking inwards and deducing what led to their failure. And like any good political party who knows what they’re doing, they figured it out pretty quickly and are now taking everything they learned to prepare to change their party and country for the better. So here’s all the lessons that the Democrats learned from the election.
Not Enough Podcasts
This is the big one. If only the Dems had more podcasts, then they would have won and the United States would not be close to heading down the path of every other fallen empire throughout history. Podcasts are the key. There just isn’t enough of them, we need more. If there were just a few more podcasts with left-leaning hosts then all this could have been avoided. Trans people wouldn’t be fearing for their lives as what little rights they had are about to be stripped faster than Princess Rosalina in my dreams if only we had a few more white dudes with microphones discussing random topics for two hours. Supporting genocide is okay as long as you have a lot of podcasts to tell you how progressive it is and how it’s only slightly worse than what the other genocidal party will do. Inflation? Housing? Taxes? Climate change? None of that matters if you have podcasts. If only there were more podcasts, the Dems would have won.
This past Sunday, the world witnessed voice actress Pamela Hayden’s final performance as Milhouse Van Houten. After thirty-five years of being the heart and soul of the beloved blue-haired dork, Hayden has decided to move on to other projects. While the show has retired characters permanently in the past, Hayden has stated her desire for the character to continue to appear on the series with a new actor. So who could possibly fill her shoes as Bart’s best friend and perennial loser, Milhouse? Read on to see who we would choose.
Chris Pratt
Just getting this one out of the way since it feels like the path our universe is taking.
Hank Azaria
Out of all the remaining cast, Hank’s the one who still has the juice. Plus, I would be shocked if there was a single character on the show that he couldn’t do. In fact, I’d be surprised to hear he hasn’t done a couple of quick Milhouse re-write lines in a pinch over the years.
Dave Bautista
He’s said he wants to expand his horizons as an actor. This would certainly be against type.
One of the “Kids” From “Stranger Things”
I don’t know, maybe the tall one? Or the new girl; she’d be good. Hopefully not the genocidal one.
AI
I’d rather they take a big swing here than slowly boil the frog by using AI for small parts. If they try it with Milhouse, people will be mad right away. That might slow the march of worthless AI slop as it inevitably takes over our culture and robs all human life of its meaning.
Patrick Mahomes
Sure, he can’t act at all, but he does have a cartoonish voice. Plus, once Nancy Cartwright decides to hang ‘em up, the show would immediately have an in with Travis Kelce. Hot take? The tight end would be a decent Bart.
A Parrot Who Has Seen the First Nine Seasons of “The Simpsons”
We’d get to hear all of our favorite lines, over and over, forever! If that’s going to be the future anyway, we may as well embrace it. Just make sure you make it stop watching after season nine.
Isaac Hayes
Okay, yeah, he’s been dead for a decade and a half. Still, this would be an incredible get for “The Simpsons.” It would really stick it to Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Justin Roiland
Milhouse hopelessly pines after Lisa Simpson, which could provide a harmless outlet for Roiland’s problematic habit of flirting with minors.
Elon Musk
The dude really wants people to think he’s funny. Getting a role on the longest-running American sitcom might fill a void inside him and make him orders of magnitude less obnoxious. Yeah, I don’t want to lose Milhouse to Musk, but if it makes him shut up and stop destroying society for a little bit it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
