"Lion Lung Tester Roars to Life at Morphy’s Auction: A Vintage Marvel Steals the Spotlight!"
...#MorphyAuctions #LasVegasAuctions #CoinOpAuctions #AdvertisingAuctions #LionLungTester #PennyArcade #VintageCollectibles #AuctionHighlights #RareAntiques #HistoricAuctions #CollectorItems #AuctionNews #VintageMachines #AuctionResults #AntiqueCollecting Morphy Auctions’ Las Vegas Coin-op & Advertising Auction Achieves $3.5M+ in Sales, Led by Rare Mills Lion Lung Tester Morphy…
At #PennyArcade there is a nice #comic strip on #AI, #OpernAI and #StarTrek
I 💙 the show, Reacher, but I’ve been saving season 3 as I had been on a rewatch of all 3 seasons of Daredevil (and Defenders) to prep for Daredevil: Born Again. All that said, I have watched the trailers for season 3 and got this general premise, but this #PennyArcade strip gave me a chuckle this morning…
@mike You might like the #PennyArcade take on Amazon buying #JamesBond (comic) https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/02/21/troubletown-u-s-a
"The name's Bond, #AmazonBond”
Happy birthday to #Fark founder Drew Curtis and #PennyArcade writer and founder Jerry Holkins. Both of whom I wish were on Mastodon.
There are those comics where you can tell the #PennyArcade guys are just genuinely happy while making the comic. Today feels like one of those days 😃
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/02/03/vengeance-is-mine-saith-the-lord
Reading Penny Arcade's thing on "what is an Xbox" or whatever the ad campaign is, I don't really pay attention to Microsoft anymore, puts the the Playstation Portal's latest hardware update in clearer focus. The only real change I could tell is they added a Beta to allow PS+ Ultimate streaming. Which seemed like a thing that should have been there day one.
But the next best time after Day One, is "before Microsoft puts out their own streaming handheld."
I'm still not paying $170/year for Ultimate, but it makes sense.
#VideoGames #Playstation #PlatstationPortal #Xbox #GameStreaming #TourmaGaming #PennyArcade
Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! (or B!D!F!W!) is an internationally toured show by performer #PennyArcade. Like many of her shows, it combines #eroticDancing, #improvisation, #comedy, #audienceParticipation, and #monologue. Themes include #AIDS, #pornography, #censorship and #prostitution. It helped form an international gay #burlesque scene and has played a substantial role in the #gayShame movement.
"I once listened to a podcast where two people younger than me tried to understand what selling out even meant, and ultimately they determined that it didn't actually mean anything. This may be the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled."
Damn. Tycho's observations on the world often resonate with me in a way that I wish they didn't.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2024/10/25/let-them-eat-brands
Yesterday I took our son to his first PAX. I hadn’t been to one since 2019 (with the exception of PAX Online). My peak PAX attendance era 2008-2013 was before he was born! Now that he’s old enough for both more of the content and the amount of walking and waiting involved it was time for a shared father-son day of gaming. We had a ton of fun!
(Long post incoming.)
Our Day
The bus ride downtown was convenient except for the Sunday schedule timing. I know we’re on a mostly commuter only route but 30 minute headways are a pain. A neighbor even got on a few stops down the road in full fantasy armor cosplay (I think FFXIV?).
We started the day in the new Summit building since we wanted to attend an Omegathon round that morning and not walk the few blocks in between (or go through security) multiple times. As it turns out this was wise since the huge line was over at the old Arch building to get into the expo hall. It gave us time to explore the building, including the Classic Arcade and some of the tabletop vendors, with not many people around.
Some classic arcade shmup actionWe were also among the first people to hit the Merch area and pick up some swag including some cool pins. I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid so always enjoy cool designs, but I do not understand pin trading. Why would I want to give up pins that I like??
Merch!The Omegathon round was somewhat sparsely attended, maybe a half full smaller theater. At PAX East I remember it being more core to the event? It was still fun cheering everyone trying to beat the fastest time on the first stage of a 40 year old game. Kiddo of course was cheering for Sassy Wombat on name alone. There were some pretty impressive runs; it was fun to cheer along with the crowd. I think they underestimated their three run format for all of the Omeganauts so it ran into the next panel.
Excitebike for (emulated) NESCheering got loudWe ate our packed lunch (bagged with little hearts on it by Andrle) while on the go switching buildings. Due to my incorrect memory of the usual setup and some unclear signage we unnecessarily walked around the block to enter from the underpass side before taking the escalators up to the main Expo Hall.
We spent about three hours exploring various booths, mostly focused on our usual favorite indie game options, including those at PAX Rising and Wholesome Games. There may not be an Indie Megabooth at PAX anymore but the vibe is still there. We of course had to check out the Panic booth. There was a giant Playdate with a real working crank! We had planned on trying some games at the Nintendo booth but the line was too long.
Kiddo was interested in looking at the fancy light up PC hardware too (something we don’t have at all). He also recognized the mind flayer spelljammer ship on top of the Larian booth for Baldur’s Gate III so I’m doing something right. I of course had to finally try on a Star Trek jacket at the Volante Design booth. I’ve been getting those ads any time I open Instagram lately.
I did not know gaming rig figurine display was a thingWe headed back to Summit to finish our day in the tabletop expo. Lots of cool stuff to look at but the games closet shelf is really full at this point! I also managed to avoid more dice, but did get a pin. We decided not to try anything from the games library since it was getting late. We wrapped up with a quick snack stop (packed popcorn and a $4 convention center sprite).
We realized also that there there was VR freeplay, which I hadn’t seen anything about in any of the show information emails or app. Unfortunately the wait list was over two hours so we missed our chance; we would have had to sign up earlier in the day. Kid is very excited to try VR more since we don’t have it at home; we’ll have to see if one of his friends has a setup.
We did spend some brief time with the Console Freeplay, doing some Overcooked 2, which we’ve played together before (though not on Xbox Series S). We also briefly checked out the TCG and RPG area. There were tons of tables marked as reserved for Lorcana (which we’ve been enjoying lately) but no one playing at them, which was kinda odd.
We finished the evening grabbing a few more photos around the I think newly iconic building before walking back to the bus home. Unfortunately poor schedule timing meant we had to take a 4 and walk across the hill a bit, but that was nicer than waiting downtown another 20 minutes.
Mirrored ceilingThoughts
All in all, a super fun event. The rest of this post covers a few things about the convention in general before highlighting a few of our favorite game demos.
One general comment is that I have no idea how I used to do three days of an event like this! Especially when I often stayed late for concerts or open tabletop gaming. The six plus miles of slow walking and standing in line is apparently a lot for my now 40+ legs.
COVID Safety
There was no mask mandate of any kind and pretty minimal messaging before the show other than the usual “don’t spread PAX Plague” that existed before COVID. Like anyone else they basically just defer to state and local regulations or the venue, which doesn’t have any teeth anymore. That said I think we observed about 20% masking, higher than I’ve encountered anywhere else recently.
Kiddo and I masked the entire time (and ate outside) and it seemed like the ventilation was good and in many areas crowds weren’t super packed. The biggest risk is probably that so many people traveled to get here from areas with higher rates according to sewer data. Hopefully in a few days we won’t discover that I’m just bargaining. Honestly while it’s way more people it can’t be much worse than being the only person masking in office conference rooms three days a week?
Architecture
This was my first time in the new Summit building (having been to the old arch building several times between a few PAXen, PodCons, and a Planted Expo). LMN did some beautiful work.
I’m sure some of it is the newness but there are some really neat elements between the iconic staircase, the closeable atriums including The Hole, and tons of local art all over.
🕳️Kiddo commented on how cool all the brutalist elements in the old building over I-5 are, and while parts of it feel like a late ’80s mall the Freeway Park end still looks cool.
Penny Arcade
Obviously the web comic and its creators still loom large over the show, but they’re not as central as I remember they were a decade plus ago. ReedPop has owned it the entire time I’ve attended but especially the smaller Omegathon without Gabe and Tycho running it felt like the show is more of a general gaming convention that happens to feature some of their art and key panels. I wonder how many attendees regularly read the strip!
This isn’t a bad thing, and I gather it’s allowed them to not have to stress as much even as the event has gotten much larger. It probably also broadens the appeal inclusivity-wise given some of their past mistakes.
Mobile Gaming
Notably absent I thought was much mention at all of mobile gaming which is a huge part of the gaming experience but often considered lesser compared to console and PC gaming. It’s unfortunate because many of the kinds of casual puzzle games I love are on iOS.
It was also telling compared to 2019 and 2020 that I saw no mention of Apple Arcade. Almost all of the indie games we saw were coming to some combination of Switch and Steam. As we often said on our long hiatus podcast 25¢, Apple wants artfully made games but doesn’t seem to get game development. For indies the lack of game demos, early access, or even basic follow abilities makes it hard for them to commit to the platform. This has come up more and more recently in the context of the recent announcement that Monument Valley 3 is coming to iOS via Netflix.
Video Game Highlights
The Panic booth was one of our first stops and this is one of the upcoming games they’re publishing. It reminded me a lot of a kind of minimal HyperCard aesthetic. While a game didn’t last long before your fly dies, there are various time rewinding mechanics available to buy yourself more time.
This was one of the cozy games we were excited about when we watched the Wholesome Direct a few months ago. We had to wait a while to try it but it’s a nice lightweight city sim with a neat art style. Felt kinda like managing one floor of SimTower, but as a street.
Kind of a mashup between a deck building card game and a relationship sim? You’re the AI of a dystopian corporate office trying to manipulate the occupants to help you escape. Apparently they originally conceived of it as a tabletop game. The demo was interesting if maybe a little content wise too old for kiddo.
Super cool hand-felted stop motion animation sprites made by a tiny team from Port Townsend, WA. The gameplay demo was a side scroller reminiscent of Gradius, but simpler and fuzzier. This seems like an astounding amount of work to make, I hope they’re able to be efficient with their assets!
We were familiar with Wilmot’s Warehouse (actually got it for Andrle a while back to scratch an organization itch) so this puzzle continuation is a neat addition to the theme. Has a nice jazzy soundtrack.
Tabletop Game Highlights
We saw their cool glitch art logo across the hall and got a full round demo of this two-player duel game. It had an interesting AI singularity theme and pretty good balanced gameplay. We won by one round.
The original Sonic games for Genesis are big in our house, so this one jumped out at us. We got a brief explanation of the rules and it seems like a fun group versus the game rolling game.
This was probably the highlight of the show! It’s an interesting hybrid between a VTT and a turn-based RPG video game. They call it a “digital tabletop RPG”. They have their own rule system and it can run locally or remote. The game engine helps with rule enforcement and assets (including character audio!) but the game master still controls everything. It seemed simple enough that even a younger kid could run a campaign.
Their business model is interesting too… the base game and first small adventure are free but additional adventures or asset packs are paid. The main thing I’m wondering is what their roadmap is like… will they be able to churn out new adventures as quickly as a committed group can play through them? Maybe one a quarter or so?
They had a successful Kickstarter last year but their team seems a lot bigger than that funding level so I hope they’ve got their investment sorted. This is a system I think we’d like to commit to for family game time.
https://blog.ultranurd.net/2024/09/02/pax-west-2024/
#appleArcade #architecture #boardGames #convention #covid #pax #paxWest #pennyArcade #rpgs #seattle #tabletopGames #videoGames
This D&D one shot, where Jasmine Bhullar DMs for the Penny Arcade DMs, is so good. I have also discovered it's really hard to do push-ups while you're laughing.
scan: Amusement Machines by Lynn F Pearson (1992; 2010)
https://pinballnovice.blogspot.com/2024/03/scan-amusement-machines-by-lynn-f.html
I bought an original copy, so of course I sent the reprint copy off to get scanned
A radiant 1973 sunrise bathes Disneyland's Main Street U.S.A., while Esmeralda the Fortune Teller gazes upon this elegant trash can outside the Penny Arcade. #ThrowbackThursday
🌐 | https://buff.ly/45krNS5
📷 | Gorillas Don't Blog
Used by Permission. #MagicalTrash #Disney #DisneyTrashCan #TrashCan #DisneyParks #Photography #Anaheim #Disneyland #MainStreetUSA #PennyArcade
#lispyGopherClimate #ARCHIVED https://archives.anonradio.net/202405290000_screwtape.mp3
#climate #haiku from @kentpitman https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/112511216971619851 do retoot
, connecting @tante kinda anti-enshittening talk : https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/112520273965762698
#lisp
#springlispgamejam2024 https://itch.io/jam/spring-lisp-game-jam-2024/rate/2713259 rating period extended
#gopher #toobnix https://toobnix.org/w/gXLXQqxf5MYg1NDF2Ua6oA EXPERIMENTAL
@mapcar @dekkzz76 @TheGibson #pennyArcade et al on the state of #LLMs.
@socool #music
@prahou #unix_surrealism
@kashifshah's room in #LambdaMOO today room#108644
Recensie: Penny Arcade – Backwater Collage ★★★★
https://writteninmusic.com/albumrecensie/penny-arcade-backwater-collage/
#Music #Alternative #PennyArcade #TapeteRecords #SonicRendezvous
“The sun-dappled exteriors of these preternaturally pretty tunes are serene and calming, though there are some rough, cold currents underneath,” writes Jennifer Kelly. https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/749468128425181184/penny-arcade-backwater-collage-tapete #music #pennyarcade #indiepop
