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Bi-Weekly Roundup - Mar. 19, '24

Bi-Weekly Roundup - Mar. 19, '24
What is Pingu getting up to this time?

Early March was a bit of a lull for a couple of reasons. I caught the seasonal flu and was out of commission for about a week, so my intake of games was stunted a bit, and the game releases themselves were a bit sparse.

This week, I'd like to highlight a couple of light (and one not-so-light) gaming news pieces to fill in for the lack of games I played. With exciting major updates from some older games and an internet controversy straight out of 2014. Each week, certainly is keeping me on my toes 😅.

In this Article:

Backpack Battles

I've noted Backpack Battles before, but now it's fully released! It's no secret I love autobattling games. They emulate a lot of the joy of playing card games in shorter bite-sized chunks. BPB (is that a real acronym?) does not slack at all on this front. There is a clear strategy to winning and payoffs for early game rush builds, and there are items that can augment your economy and allow you to spend a longer time scaling into being giga-powerful.

The presentation here is simple and cartoony. I think it adds to the aesthetic excellently. The way the shopkeeper "chats" with you as you make purchases is really funny, and my friends in Discord have already begun emulating them. Overall as far as games I've played in the past few weeks, the slower pace and thinking tone of this auto battler is a great time spend, and it gets me excited for the upcoming Teamfight Tactics Set 11. Speaking of...

Teamfight Tactics Set 11 Release

I will go on the record saying that TFT is one of the best-designed games available to play right now. Its ability to combine fun accessibility with mechanical depth is world-class. The regular refreshing of the game, releasing new sets every few months, and a team behind it that Riot Mortdog heads, creates an endlessly replayable game loop that will make you want more always.

TFT Set 11, released March 20, 2024, is no different. I've played a couple of games on the PBE (Public Beta Environment) and immediately knew this would be another amazing release from this team at Riot. If you have not had the joy of playing TFT up until now, I would definitely suggest doing so! The only drawback here is that you have to download League of Legends to do it 😂.

Let me know if you do, and I will teach you a few tricks to get you up to speed.

Stardew Valley Update

This is an Indie darling hit that keeps on giving. It is a wild success story of a solo developer making a passion project. This project was released in 2016 to massive success, and here we are almost a decade later, and he is still working on it in tandem with his upcoming game Haunted Chocolatier.

This game is a little farming sim game where you are gifted a farm by a family member and left to learn about a small town of friendly folks while keeping the farm you were gifted afloat. Akin to something like Harvest Moon, Stardew is a cozy gamer's game.

This update brings it all. An expansion of multiplayer up to 8 players, new events, new furniture, new villagers, new pets, new everything... all for the price of free? This game was unheard of when it released but to release such a massive update, free, a decade later is astronomical in an industry plagued with greed. Bravo Concernedape, looking forward to checking it out!

World of Warcraft New Patch!

"No king rules forever" is a quote that rings true with many World of Warcraft players, except that this 2004 game still brings exciting changes and updates 20 years after its release. How that's possible, no one knows, but with the ousting of Bobby Kotick from Blizzard this year, it appears that the WoW team is really continuing to bring the heat.

This WoW patch brings the exciting new game mode dubbed "Plunderstorm," a pirate-themed Battle royale similar to games like Fortnite or Apex Legends. I have been lucky to play this quite a bit today on its release, and I'm proud to say that it's a blast! If you have any passing interest in Retail WoW or have an active subscription, this a great game to burn a couple of hours with a friend and really flex those BR skills. Definitely looking forward to playing more of this in the coming weeks.

Diversity in Videogames

Like I said in the intro, the recent news cycle has really brought decade-old controversies back into the timeline. I'm not really sure who actually feels this way, but there has been talk about whether or not diversity in games has been good. Blame for current industry trends of bland AAA games, mass layoffs, and greedy business practices placed upon "Blue-haired women" and "POC main characters in games."

I'm here to tell you that's a load of crap. I'm not sure it's even worth a discussion, but since we are here, we may as well have a minor chat about it. There have been endless studies about the way that diversity in games affects how they are played, and almost all of them are good. Valorant, a game I used to coach a team for, has found tons of success with non-male audiences because it includes unique and strong female characters that attract that audience. Women want to play women in the games they play, and that means having those options available matters for expanding an audience. People love to see themself in the game (both literally and not), and that has an effect.

As for the other side of this. Who is making these decisions? Almost 75% of executive level employees in the games industry are White, and of that same class of worker, 70% are men. These are the people who make business decisions to perform mass layoffs, double down on microtransactions (these aren't micro any longer), and rush out broken games.

This is not to say you need to redirect your blame upon this group of folks, but rather that the current outrage is entirely misplaced and could be more productive if we were to look at the top rather than those who are passionate about the industry they work in.

I don't have much more to say on this. I think it's a played-out argument, and we are better than to continue it much further. Besides, good games are good games that give a hoot about their content (potentially dangerous words). We've got work to do on this front, as there are many good games to play and many more to come! Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Thanks so much for reading this Bi-Weekly Roundup. I hope you'll return for the next one. I plan to keep you updated on my thoughts about the games I've played and link to some incredible games as we go. Looking forward to sharing more!