The Escapist Exodus and October

This week has been a strange one. October itself was fine: I made some progress on my my health, and am feeling slightly better. I’ve kept up my increased exercise, and that has been helping too. I also made some small progress on a new Youtube video, and more progress on learning Godot.

Other than that behind the scenes stuff, I released:

• A review of The Lamplighter’s League - It’s good, but unremarkable, basically. I keep coming back to “XCOM, but different” because it’s a lot like XCOM and while it is different in meaningful ways, they’re not easy to describe without getting into the nitty gritty of mechanics. While the game is good, it seems to have sold poorly, with the developer laying off a lot of people and set to become independent from their parent company at the beginning of next year. I hope it works out for them.

• A review of Cavern of Dreams. It’s a very N64 inspired 3D platformer that I had some fun with. I wouldn’t say it’s a great game, but it’s a nice afternoon or two of nostalgic fun.

• This silly video on twitter - I was making a video with Banjo-Kazooie in it, but decided it wasn’t very interesting. I had already made this though, so now I’m inflicting it upon you.

Nothing else made it out this month, but, since I’m a few days late, you get the preview of early November’s news!

• Thirsty Suitors is a fun RPG I reviewed, with a really great story. I loved playing as such a flawed character who isn’t treated as wholly evil, nor fully exonerated for being as ass.

• I also reviewed Star Ocean The Second Story R. Believe it or not, Square Enix’s official styling for that doesn’t have a colon as far as I could tell! On Steam it’s also in all caps though, so who know’s what they’re thinking? I almost didn’t play this one, fearing it would be long and boring, but it was actually medium length and mostly fun. It’s better than okay, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it’s what you get sometimes.

Finally, the first week of November brought the news that the Escapist’s editor-in-chief, Nick Calandra, was laid off. Soon afterwards the higher-ups laid off most of the video staff at the site, and everyone else quit. I was asleep for most of this, so I didn’t immediately jump on board. But I’m hopping on board with everyone else!

The plan is to build something else with the same group of people - all the same creators, with less pressure to hit view targets and more focus on making things our viewers enjoy.

We’re calling ourselves Second Wind, and we have a new Youtube Channel, Patreon, Twitter, and Twitch. There’ll be a stream Wednesday at 11AM CT day with more info about the exact plans. We’re still working things out a little, but it’s exciting

By December, things will probably be different! I’ll outline whatever plans have been made by then in the next update email. The reviews that went out in this email are likely the last I’ll ever do for The Escapist, but maybe I’ll have something else to report!

Take care, and see you next time.