Paint Brash

I sometimes feel like my entire life is playing RPGs: by the time I finish one up, there's another one I want to play lined up and waiting for me. I'll sometimes force myself to take a break, to play another genre or stop playing games altogether for a bit. But I almost always enjoy whatever massive RPG I pick up next.

 

The latest entry for me is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which I received courtesy of my brother for my birthday (thanks, Andrew!). I've been hearing about this game for a while, including from a co-worker who said it's her favorite RPG of the last several years, and I've been looking forward to experiencing it for myself.

MINI SPOILERS

The one-sentence summary of Expedition 33 is basically "A French JRPG". It has a lot of the game structure and feel of a Final Fantasy game. Your main character and party members are all predefined characters. At least thus far in the game, there aren't any dialogue choices or branching plot points. You assemble your team into an active party of 3 combatants, and face off in turn-based battles against 1-3 opponents. You fight enemies to gain XP and money ("chroma"), level up your characters, pick abilities, get weapons and equipment.

 

 

But, everything about the game's style oozes French: the haircuts, the clothes, the art style. Accordion music everywhere you turn. You fight mimes, for crying out loud! The characters aren't accented, but most of the proper words are French: Gommage, Petank, Lumiere. About the only thing missing is characters taking long drags on cigarettes.

 

 

After playing the game for a while, though, I've been surprised to learn that a lot of it actually feels more like Elden Ring than anything else. (Though this may be more about Dark Souls influencing the RPG landscape in general.) Some examples:

 

 

"Bonfire"-style save mechanics. You can discover Expedition Flagpoles, which work similarly to Sites of Grace in Elden Ring. If you choose to rest at one, it completely heals you and refills your consumables, but also respawns non-boss enemies. After you've unlocked one it becomes available for fast-travel, although in Expedition 33 you can only fast-travel from a Flagpole to another one in the same zone (there isn't an Open World or the ability to fast-travel from anywhere).

Consumables regenerate, which is great - no more saving 99 mana potions in your inventory because you might need them one day! Like Elden Ring there is a healing potion ("Tint"), as well as one to generate AP and another to revive a fallen party member (revive was not relevant in the single-character Elden Ring). You also upgrade them similarly, discovering materials that you can use at the Flagpole to increase the potency or quantity of your potions.

Petanks are like Teardrop Scarabs: they aren't necessarily tough, but you have to take them down quickly to acquire their treasure.

Finally, but most importantly and most surprisingly, combat is like Elden Ring, despite being squad-based and turn-based. In particular, both games have combat that heavily relies on Dodge and Parry ability. The actual flow of combat is turn-based, with you issuing commands to attack, use an item or use a skill; but during the animation, you can intervene to change the outcome. For your party's abilities, you can press A at a certain point to increase the strength of the attack (or heal or whatever). More importantly, when an enemy attacks, you can press Dodge or Parry at the right instant to evade the attack and completely avoid any damage. So there's the same sort of "git gud" philosophy as in Soulslikes: you're learning enemy attack patterns and timings and animations, and if you can reliably dodge or parry at the right times, you can whittle away any enemy or even boss, regardless of your level. And, like in Elden Ring, if you're having trouble with a particular boss you do have the option of going elsewhere, grinding XP and resources, getting more HP and attack power, and then coming back with more of a buffer to soak damage during the battle.

 

 

I should hasten to note that this game isn't as hard as Elden Ring, though one of my few complaints is that difficulty varies wildly during the game: you'll be in a zone where you can just brain-dead take down all opponents and shrug off any damage, and then face an optional enemy who can one-shot your entire party and who takes fifteen minutes of flawless execution to defeat. I haven't yet resorted to looking up mechanics online (except for one "Tricky Shot" attack that was giving me conniptions), so if I fail a fight a few times in a row I'll just make a mental note of where it was and move on.

 

 

Oh, and back to dodge and parry: early on I was focusing on parries, which are strictly superior to dodges: in addition to avoiding damage, you also execute a free counter-attack, which is incredibly helpful. However, the timing required for parries is significantly harder, so I've given up and just focused on dodges. I'm decent, not great, at them. Each enemy has their own distinct timing to learn, so there isn't one universal cue to look for. Usually after a few attack rounds I get to the point where I can reliably dodge, and probably a bit more than half of the time get a "perfect" dodge; with the 1-point "Dodger" Lumina equipped, you gain an AP on a perfect dodge, which is a nice advantage. My understanding is that the window for a Perfect Dodge is the same as the window for a successful Parry (with a Perfect Parry being a further subset), so if I ever get to the point where I'm reliably hitting that Perfect Dodge I may switch back to parrying.

 

 

For my team: it's been a pretty slow process of gathering my party, with just Gustave for a while, then adding Lune, then some time later Maelle, and more recently Sciel, so there hasn't been a whole lot of choice in party composition thus far. I've been equipping new Pictos on whoever seems like they might synergize with it or who has open slots; at some point I'll buckle down and do a proper optimization pass with all the Lumina I've learnt, but for now I just periodically revisit that when I reassign Pictos.

 

 

I've been loading up Gustave with Free Aim-related Pictos and Luminas; I don't know if he has any particular advantage with them, it's more that I wanted to focus those abilities on one character and he happened to be it. Early in the game I would often do a combo to open battles where he would Mark enemies and then Lune would unleash a fire attack on them for some extra stacks of Burn. For most trash mob fights he plinks away at enemies and we win before he can charge up his arm. For boss fights, I can usually charge it, then need to do basic attacks for a round or two to get enough AP for the lightning attack; this usually finishes off the boss (probably with a good amount of overkill, though I'm not sure if there's a way to track that.)

 

 

Lune feels like a caster/mage type, with a much bigger collection of abilities than Gustave. Her abilities revolve around environmental damage: Earth, Electricity, Fire, Ice. These are all pretty different. Earth tends to be more for AOE attacks and healing. Fire inflicts DOT Burn status effects. One consistent aspect of Expedition 33 is that you are strongly encouraged to rotate between attacks instead of just spamming a particular ability. For Lune, the incentive is to essentially create "combos" from multiple abilities; in a departure from how much games work, though, combos aren't triggered by status effects on the target, but rather on the caster. If you cast a Fire spell, you'll gain a Fire "stain"; some other (non-Fire) abilities will then consume that "stain" for an additional bonus, which might be more damage, a free attack, a free turn, some healing, etc. I really like Lune's abilities, but she is chronically short on AP, so I end up needing to do Basic Attacks with her a lot of the time. I should do some theory-crafting research and see if there's a better way to use her.

 

 

Maelle is probably my favorite combatant so far. Her fighting style revolves around "stances", like Gaichu in Shadowrun Hong Kong. Whenever she finishes a skill, she will end in a particular stance, which will give some bonuses (and possibly penalties) in the following round: Offensive deals more damage but also receives more damage, Defensive increases resistance and AP regeneration, Virtuoso gives high damage. Like Lune, you are strongly encouraged to switch abilities since you can't remain in the same stance for more than one turn. Unlike Lune or Gustave, I never seem to need to worry about AP with Maelle. She has some really nice sequences that alternate between stances, do a good amount of direct and DOT damage, and keep her AP high. Most of her attacks inflict Fire damage, so she can be weak against enemies who are resistant to Fire; occasionally I'll swap her out during a fight like that, but she also has a few abilities that deal Physical damage, as well as a useful one that converts Burn stacks into straight Physical damage.

 

 

Finally, Sciel is the most recent person I've picked up. Once again you're encouraged to alternate between skills. In her case, some of her abilities give "Sun Charge" and others give "Moon Charge"; somewhat like Maelle's Stances, each charge gives a passive buff for the following turn. If you get both Sun and Moon, you then unlock Twilight for two turns which gives even larger bonuses. Sciel's straight damage feels a little lacking, but she excels in multi-turn setups. Some of her abilities apply stacks of "Foretell" on an enemy. By itself these do nothing, but subsequent abilities will consume "Foretell". The most straightforward will convert it to damage, which is very powerful; other abilities will convert to AP for your teammates or healing for yourself. Sciel's AP situation is even better than Maelle's, and I'll often start her turns with 9 AP. I'm thinking of turning Sciel into my gun bunny, since she has AP to burn.

 

 

Moving on to the story:

 

 

One thing I love about Expedition 33 is the almost complete lack of exposition. Nobody ever explains what's going on. You can gradually piece it together from dialogue, which as in all speculative fiction is more rewarding that being spoon-fed the backstory. Here is my current understanding of the situation, though I could definitely be wrong about many things:

 

 

I believe this is set in a separate world, not Earth. About 67 years ago, a godlike being called The Paintress removed humanity from The Continent and exiled them to the island of Lumiere. She also created a large clock tower with a number on it, originally 100 and counting down by 1 each year. Each year, everyone that age or older undergoes the "gommage", basically immediately winking out of existence / dying. So the first year everyone 100 or older died, the second year everyone 99 or older, and so on. At the start of this game, the 34-year-olds all died, so everyone left alive on Lumiere is 33 or younger.

 

 

Every year, Lumiere mounts an "expedition" to the Continent to try and stop the Paintress from doing this. The expedition is often largely filled by people who are facing the year of their gommage: if they fail in the quest, they will die anyways, so they might as well try. It's up to the individual, though, and lots of people will spend their last year with friends and family.

MEGA SPOILERS

I think that's the main stuff so far. Your particular expedition starts off very badly, with an ambush on the beach that results in mass slaughter. I am a little suspicious about exactly what's going on: characters seem to die, then wake up, which makes me wonder if they might actually be dead / in some sort of afterlife or something.

 

 

Life on the Continent is very strange, which I think is largely due to the influence of the Paintress but may predate her. The main life forms you encounter are "nevrons", who are mostly enemies although you run across a couple for side-quests who seem friendly or at least passive. Nevrons all look very different and very strange, sometimes made from geometric shapes and other times more monstrous-looking.

 

There are also the Gestrals, who are probably my favorite thing in Expedition 33 so far. They're basically anthropomorphic paint brushes, usually about knee-high although some are much bigger. They talk in a weird language that the human characters in the game can understand but I can't; fortunately subtitles are provided. They are pretty childlike: enthusiastic, excitable, kinda dumb. Oh, and they love fighting, and will eagerly engage in a friendly duel at any opportunity. They're also really bad at fighting! I think those are the easiest fights I've had all game, even though you're usually facing them 1-on-1 and not in a party.

 

 

END SPOILERS

I just reached the end of Act 1, hence this blog post. I'll likely check in twice more as I proceed through the game. I feel like there's a lot more story to uncover and I'm looking forward to seeing what else is in store. 

 

The Company We Keep

I just finished reading "The Sons of Heaven" by Kage Baker. It is an entry in her series often referred to as The Company; it wasn't until the end of the book that I realized that it is, essentially, the last book in the series. From some light online research, it sounds like she did publish subsequent works after this, but The Sons Of Heaven definitively wraps up all the major plot threads and character arcs she had been working on up to this point, and I think the later novels are a fresh start.

 

It's been a long, leisurely and enjoyable journey through these books. Looking back through my archives, I started with the first book just over a decade ago. These have become sort of comfort books to me. Not in the sense of being soothing books - there is a fair amount of violence, heartbreak and tension throughout the stories - but they're very readable, fun, with great characters, good worldbuilding and a nicely twisty plot. For a while I was reading them in tandem with Charles Stross's Merchant Princes books, and more recently with his Laundry Files. Just, y'know, a good series! I think we all want some of those.

MINI SPOILERS

I haven't been blogging about each entry; I think I have a hard time writing up stories that end in obvious cliffhangers with the next entry waiting for me to read. Because I've been reading these over such a long period of time my memory feels a bit hazy at points, but I'm also surprised at just how clearly I can remember a lot of things, particularly the supporting characters: Literature Specialist Lewis, Regional Director Suleyman, Labenius, Chatterji, Billy Bones and more. The Sons of Heaven doesn't spend a lot of time recapping things or re-introducing characters, so I was glad to have retained as much as I did.

MEGA SPOILERS

I am impressed that she was able to wrap everything up so neatly. I'm used to other series, fantasy in particular, that sprawl out exponentially as they get further along, to the point where two new plot threads get introduced for every one that gets resolved. The complexity of The Company has definitely expanded over the course of the series, as we've learned that some of the core axioms are actually flexible and gotten to know various vying factions among the immortals. But by this point all the pieces are on the board, and she can focus on making them move in a satisfying manner.

The one big introduction that felt "new" here was the literal Dr. Zeus. That's been one of the odd things about the series. In the first couple of books, you have the vague impression that the human members of The Company are incredibly intelligent, not just in their scientific acumen but as incredibly talented schemers, planners and manipulators. Then you eventually get to meet the humans, and they're... pretty lame. Childish, peevish, picky, easily startled, lacking in culture or grit or just about any redeeming virtue. How did these dummies get to run everything?

We eventually learn that, at the behest of one of the (secretly disaffected) servant cyborgs, the humans opted to make The Company's database (the "Temporal Concordance") into a self-aware artificial intelligence. This parallels Captain Morgan, the Pembroke Playmate given to Alec some books ago that turned into an incredibly powerful (and humorous, and caring) AI. Because Dr. Zeus has sprung from the time-traveling historical record, he doesn't just turn into an AI: he's an omnipotent and omnipresent AI that, after he has been created, has always existed in the past and has been responsible for all the actions and decisions taken thus far.

Physically, Dr. Zeus manifests as a lifesize statue of, well, Zeus, in his Artemision depiction. This is a fairly chilling character, who SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS and seems to know what everyone is thinking before they say it.

Jumping ahead a bit (well, a lot), Captain Morgan and Alec's several-books-long plot comes to fruition, as the various bombs and things they've hidden throughout space and time all erupt into a massive assault on Dr. Zeus. He ends up not getting a whole lot of "screen time" or putting up much of a fight, at least from what we can see, although it does sound like the Captain has his hands full dealing with him.

The most interesting part of this book, to me, are the various cabals among the immortals. I get the impression that most cyborgs aren't really affiliated with any of them and are just on the sidelines watching. There are two "bad guy" factions, one that wants to enslave humanity, the other that wants to exterminate them, led by Labenius and... hm, I'm blanking on the other guy's name. Then there's the "good guy" faction, led by Suleyman, that wants to free the cyborgs from human control but to coexist peacefully with them.

Outside of them are the core characters of Mendoza and the various manifestations of Nicholas Harpole / Edward Fairfax / Alec, along with the Captain and his lackeys. Mendoza has usually been one of my favorite characters, but these sections of the book were relatively less interesting to me. The concept of what's happening is pretty stunning: in the previous book, Edward succeeded in tricking Nicholas and Alec, stealing Alec's body and partitioning away their minds. In this book, Mendoza and Edward wed, Edward becomes immortal, and then Mendoza becomes pregnant with two cloned children bearing the full consciousness of her former lovers. They are born, and a lot of the book is given over to raising this very strange family.

There are a lot of other plot lines as well. I was particularly moved by the plight of Lewis, who had been cruelly sacrificed to the Kin, who seem to be a race of aliens / gnomes who have created most of the actual inventions of The Company. He was experimented on and left for dead as part of a plot to develop a means to permanently destroy the immortal cyborgs. He is found, rescued and eventually rejuvenated by the unlikely named Princess Tiara, one of the Kin. This seems like an homage to Arabian Nights, and I really enjoyed how it played out.

Oh, and there's also Budu, one of the ancient Enforcers who fought the Great Goat Cult, and Joseph, who is helping Budu in his quest to take down the faithless mortal masters. This plot line surprisingly also includes William Randolph Hearst. This isn't the first time a historical figure has entered the story - we've already met Shakespeare and Robert Louis Stevenson and lots of other folks - but Hearst is unusual; apparently he figured out about the existence of the Company, approached them, and became the only person from the past to become a Company shareholder and the only adult to become an immortal cyborg. Watching Joseph and Hearst interact is pretty interesting; Joseph is playing a very particular role, like a 1920s newsie, all "Gee whiz, mister Hearst!" even though they both know what Joseph is. Budu and Joseph fill in Hearst on "the silence", the plot of the mortal masters to destroy all cyborgs in 2355, so Hearst comes over to their side and proves invaluable in collecting equipment and information for their scheme. He's one of the few new characters to be introduced and make a major impact in this novel. (At least I think he's new, I don't recall him from the other books, but it's been a while.)

Everything comes to a head on Santa Catalina Island, and again, it's a lot of fun: good action, scheming, plans executed or thwarted, betrayals and double-betrayals, redemption, catharsis. One of the core concepts for the entire series is that nobody knows what happens after The Silence, so there's a lot of genuine tension and drama heading into the climax. I suspected that the series would have a happy ending, but it really could have gone in any direction and felt meaningful.

One last note: the epilogue is narrated by Joseph, and man, I'd forgotten just how much I love his voice! He hasn't been very present lately, and it's a shame, he has such a wonderful point of view: cantankerous, world-weary, sarcastic, but with a grudging deep-seated love for humanity. It did make me wish he could have narrated more of this book, but that wouldn't have worked with all the different storylines and perspectives on display. It does kind of make me want to go back and re-read Sky Coyote, though.

END SPOILERS

So, yeah! It's been a great journey through The Company novels, and I'm glad to see them through to a proper conclusion. I know that Kage Baker has written some other novels, including a few in The Company's universe; I also should go back and finish her House of the Stag series, which is where I first was introduced to her. Sadly she's no longer with us, but I'm glad she left such great books behind!

Hawkmoon! Hawkmoon!

I tend not to blog about the more pulpy books I read, but I thought I'd drop in a quick post about "Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff". This is a volume that collects four books in Michael Moorcock's mostly-fantasy series about Dorian Hawkmoon. They're pretty breezy quick reads, which ended up being a good background book to have around.

 

 

MINI SPOILERS

I picked up this book as part of my continuing meandering through a list of sci-fi and fantasy works recommended by China Mieville, a contemporary writer I particularly enjoy. Moorcock is a giant of the speculative fiction field, and I was mildly surprised and impressed to learn that he's (1) still with us, and (2) still publishing new work. The Hawkmoon books were written back in the 1960s, and I think they fall into the category of works that were seminal at the time of publication; they're still enjoyable today, probably not as earth-shattering as they would have been at the time, but that's because people like me have previously read, watched and played newer works of fiction that were themselves inspired by it.

The books are very firmly in the sword-and-sorcery side of the fantasy genre, contrasting with the high fantasy style of other writers like Tolkien. I haven't read much Conan the Barbarian but these books read like how I imagine those books go: there is a lot of action, lots of fight scenes, very visceral passages describing how, like, someone stabbed someone else and what it sounded like and looked like. I just now opened the book to a random page, here is a representative excerpt:

The first came flying down on Hawkmoon, naked body gleaming, sword raised. Hawkmoon's own blade rose to skewer the man as he fell; another twist of the sword and the corpse dropped down through the narrow gap between the ships, into the sea. Within moments the air was full of naked warriors swinging on ropes, jumping wildly, clambering hand over hand across the grappling lines. The three men stopped the first wave, hacking about them until everything seemed blood-red, but gradually they were forced away from the rail as the madmen swarmed onto the deck, fighting without skill but with a chilling disregard for their own lives.

Hawkmoon became separated from the comrades, did not know if they lived or had been killed. The prancing warriors flung themselves at him, but he clutched his battle-blade in both hands and swung it about him in a great arc, this way and that, surrounding himself with a blur of bright steel. He was covered in blood from head to foot; only his eyes gleamed, blue and steady, from the visor of his helmet."

It can be a bit cheesy but is enjoyable, and I do really appreciate the very unique monsters and other creatures introduced over the course of the books. There's a lot of fighting, so it's impressive that the fights can all seem so distinct, even though it's always the sole hero or a small group of good guys fighting a huge number of bad guys.

The characters are pretty likeable (or hateable for the villains), but thinly sketched, usually just one or two character traits to define them. Characters, dialogue and plot mostly seem to service the action, which is not the case for most books I read but is exactly what this book wants to do, so that's great!

There isn't usually much worldbuilding in sword-and-sorcery books, and this series doesn't devote a ton of time to it, but it actually is a pretty interesting backstory. While I think of these books as fantasy, they're actually technically science fiction, set on Earth a thousands years or so from now. Like many fantasy books, this one has a map of the world near the front; but the map is a map of Europe, with the names slightly changed. Turkia instead of Turkey, Kyrus for Cyprus, Espanyia for Spain and so on. Further away and unmapped are the distant continents of Amerehk and Asiacommunista.

 

We eventually learn that there was a period of time referred to as the "tragic millennium" that separates our time from Hawkmoon's. The books never describe exactly what happened during this time, but it does seem apocalyptic: perhaps a nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, a bio-engineered plague, or some combination of things. In the resulting world, things seem generally low-tech: people ride on horses and fight with swords. But, unlike in our world, there is also magic, a strong tradition of sorcery. The magic system is never really fully explained and seems to just serve the needs of the plot. There are also many new and unfamiliar creatures, ranging from giant tameable flamingos who serve as aerial mounts to unnamed Lovecraftian tentacled horrors lurking in the water.

Alongside magic, there is also science. Much of this seems to be previously-created artifacts that are uncovered and used; this reminded me of the Numenara from Monte Cook's RPG setting. But there are also modern scientists who research and invent their own new machines; fittingly for this genre, these are invariably Bad People. The most common piece of technology is the "flame lance," which seems to be some kind of phaser or blaster weapon that's wielded alongside swords in combat. The bad guys also use "Ornithopters", which are flying machines; interestingly, they seem to fly by flapping mechanical wings, not via thrust or spinning a rotor.

The socio-political situation is that Europe has been an unruly group of warring states for a long time. However, there is a great rising power in the form of Granbretan, the updated form of Great Britain. Granbretan has the world's leading scientists, and the most ruthless generals, so they have been able to carry on an unprecedented campaign of expansion. Typically they will seek alliances and influence where possible, but when the time is right they will mercilessly attack and annihilate their conquests. The entire nation is portrayed as bloodthirsty and insane.

Hawkmoon is the last Duke of Koln (which I think is Cologne?), who before the start of the first novel was captured by Granbretan after a hopeless battle to resist the invaders. The first character we meet, though, is actually Count Brass, the ruler of Kamarg, in our present-day Provence. Brass is a slightly aging hero who did great things in his day and has decided to settle down to protect a land instead of venturing forth in search of adventure. Brass starts off the novel actually rather sympathetic to Granbretan: while their actions are harsh, he does think that the unification of Europe will be an improvement over the regular warring between small states and will lead to a better future. His resident philosopher Bowgentle, daughter Yisselda and others all disagree with him, having seen evidence of Granbretan's sadism.

I don't want to recap all of the plot in this post, but the narrative shifts over to Hawkmoon fairly early on and mostly stays with him through the rest of the series, though we do get occasional point-of-view chapters from other characters, both allies and enemies, to learn more about what's going on. The action keeps escalating higher and higher, and I can see Moorcock periodically fiddling to keep things manageable: for example, Hawkmoon will find an artifact that gives him superhuman power and able to slaughter an entire army with ease, which is a very satisfying conclusion to a particular arc, but then the author will need a reason for why he doesn't just use that artifact for all of his other fights in the future.

While I think these stories were published as regular novels, they definitely feel like serializations that would have originally appeared in magazines, with regular cliffhangers and recaps. I believe that's an homage to the style of Robert E. Howard and similar writers of the past who actually did serialize, though.

One random note: late in the novel, there's another worldbuilding-ish allusion when Moorcock describes a Granbretan ship:

Gilded figureheads decorated the forward parts of the ship, representing the terrifying ancient gods of Granbretan - Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga, who were said to have ruled the land before the Tragic Millennium

I puzzled over that for a while. Jhone was probably King John, and Jhorg was one of the King Georges, but who were Phowl and Rhunga? It took me a minute to clock that, oh yeah, it must be John, George, Paul and Ringo, the Beatles. That's funny, and especially striking since this book was published back in 1967, when they would have very much been an of-the-moment cultural phenomenon. It would be a little like a sci-fi writer putting, I dunno, Sabrina Carpenter into the backstory of their science-fiction epic.

The passage continues:

Chirshil, the Howling God; Bjrin Adass, the Singing God; Jeajee Blaad, the Groaning God; Jh'Im Slas, the Weeping God and Aral Vilsn, the Roaring God, Supreme God, father of Skvese and Blansacredid the Gods of Doom and Chaos.

"Chirshil" was previously referenced as the subject of the play "Chirshil and Adulf", which must be a WW2 reference to Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. I don't recognize (or can't parse) any of the other names in this list, I'm curious if they are other Prime Ministers or other folks I would recognize if I was more familiar with British politics. Some or all of them may be purely made-up names, bridging the gap between our time and the onset of the Tragic Millennium.

END SPOILERS

This was a pretty light read, but a lot of fun. One of the more visceral things I've read. It definitely makes me think of old-time-y radio serials and pulp magazines. Part of me wonders if those styles have grown less popular partly as a result of the rise of television, cable and streaming movies: we can watch Hollywood action movies any time we want, which might satisfy our urge for raw-knuckled kinetic violence, while previous generations would need to get it from the printed word (or by entering the boxing ring!). In any case, I'm glad to have read it. Moorcock has been a very prolific writer and I'm not about to set on a goal to read everything he's written, but I would definitely be interested to read more from him in the future, particularly knowing that he's been active across several different genres and mediums over the course of his career.

Playful Date

This is a slightly odd post for this blog, but I wanted to note that earlier this year I got a Playdate handheld console and I've really been loving it. It's a unique piece of hardware from Teenage Engineering and Panic. The design feels a bit like an original Game Boy, with a monochrome screen, D-Pad and two action buttons, but the most notable twist (heh) is the addition of a pull-out crank, which is a great nod to the analog design that Teenage Engineering is best-known for.

As part of buying a Playdate, you get free access to "Season One", with two free games released every week for twelve weeks for a total of 24 games. I'll chat more about these below. Games are delivered over WiFi, but other than that and a handful of leaderboards this is an entirely offline device. They recently released "Season Two" that you can buy, and there's also a curated game store where you can buy games (generally ranging from around $1 to $12), as well as side-load games you purchase or download for free off sites like itch.io.

One of the things I like best about the Playdate is that it is not backlit and it looks best when played in natural sunlight. This is the opposite of how I normally feel about video games: I'm usually playing on my PC, or occasionally on my PlayStation, which feels great if it's a dark winter night or a drizzly weekend afternoon, but I feel bad about being glued to my screen when it's beautiful outside. With the Playdate, though, I love sitting out on the balcony or lying on a sun-drenched couch and gaming for a bit. It's really been a perfect summertime gaming system.

I've had the Playdate for several months now, but had fallen pretty far behind on the weekly releases of Season One, and just finished trying the last couple of games today. I really love the variety: different genres, levels of polish, length. Some are pretty basic tech demos, others look like they'd be at home on a (grayscale) Switch. There are a bunch of different action games, puzzle games, music games, some RPG-adjacent games, and some that defy a genre label. My personal favorites include:

Casual Birder. This was one of the first games I played, and I still haven't finished it, but it's really fun. It reminds me a lot of Earthbound / Mother. Kind of a top-down RPG-esque view, but no combat. Simple conversations, item collection, puzzle-solving, with a cute story.

Saturday Edition. My favorite game of the collection. I'm reluctant to write too much about it since it was such a fun experience to uncover; it felt a little like Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, but more of a drama than a comedy.

Sasquatchers. Another RPG-ish game, you lead a team of cryptid hunters trying to capture photos and videos of various elusive creatures: the Sasquatch, Chupacabra, Swamp Creature, and more. This is kind of my holy grail of a game that uses RPG systems without any combat.

Pick Pack Pup. Really fun and cute and surprisingly varied matching game - I think like Bejewelled or Candy Crush maybe, though I'm not very familiar with the genre. You generally need to line up certain types of products in order to collect and ship them, which earns you money, but there are a lot of creative challenges across the various missions. It has a much stronger story than you would expect from a game like this!

Those are my faves, but there are several others I enjoyed a lot. Some games just weren't for me, and that's fine! That was a fun thing about getting 24 games, you just kind of expect that you won't love all of them.

I've already picked up a couple (literally two) of the Catalog games, I'm looking forward to checking those out. I'm also intrigued by Season Two, which apparently includes baffling video content in addition to more good games.

Oh, I should also mention that there's a proper development kit for the Playdate - actually, multiple kits, including a low-level C API (and apparently bindings from other languages that can cross-compile to C), a Lua API, and an integrated editor called Pulp that you can use for RPG Maker-style games. There's a simulator and you can side-load binaries to the Playdate, and you can share games any way you want, including releasing for free on your site or (if approved) selling on the Catalog. I haven't personally tried out the dev kit, but I think it's amazing that there's such a sizeable and passionate developer community around an indie project like this.

I received this Playdate as a gift, but I think I would have been happy buying it for all the entertainment I've gotten from it. Like I said before, it occupies a different niche from the games I'd play on my PC or PlayStation, or even from mobile games. It's been a fun summertime companion, and I feel like I'll be cranking it for years to come.

Retire THIS!!!!

After reading Jane Bryant Quinn's "How To Make Your Money Last," I thought I would be done reading retirement books for at least a decade or so: it was a nicely authoritative, comprehensive and readable book. Since then, though, I learned that one of my favorite money writers, Christine Benz, has written her own book, simply titled "How to Retire." I think I first learned about Christine through her work with the Bogleheads conference and as a presenter, but since then I've read quite a few of her articles for Morningstar, and I really like her: she has great principles, a combination of curiosity and directness, and focuses on what matters, which tends to be very rare in the financial press.

 

The book ended up being a pretty nice kind of companion piece to Jane's. The structure is interesting: instead of a "normal" book, organized by subject, it's a collection of twenty interviews Christine has had with various experts on retirement-related subjects. These include some of my favorite people, notably William Bernstein, Wade Pfau, Mike Piper and Maria Bruno, as well as many others who I was only vaguely familiar with or who were completely new to me. The interviews mostly focus on a person's area of interest and expertise, such as Mike Piper talking about taxation while others might address subjects like estate planning, steps to take in the years leading up to retirement, living situations, finding a new sense of purpose, and so on. The interviews aren't rigid, so the conversation naturally flows and you get some overlap or digressions, but I really loved those - you get a sense for peoples' values and priorities, which in turn helped me process how to apply their ideas to my own life, much like how you might interpret a film critic's recommendation differently based on their point of view.

So in some ways, this ends up being kind of an opposite book to Jane's. What I loved about "How to Make Your Money Last" was that it had some good, strong opinions and gave direct advice: do this, don't do that. The world of financial writing is overflowing with discussions of different options and too little guidance on which options are good or bad, so Jane's book was a breath of fresh air. The reality, of course, is that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone: we all have different backgrounds, resources, goals and futures, and a certain option might be good for one person and not another. Christine's book ends up being sort of a survey of what good, smart, respected and thoughtful people think about retirement, and they don't all agree with each other! This ends up having a powerful effect. Over the course of the book, you hear many different people agreeing with certain ideas, which gives them extra power: for example, that most people should usually delay taking Social Security until they turn 70. A few people raise the possible caveats and exceptions to that, while others just touch the main principle and move on. Other topics see more sharply divergent opinions, most notably annuities: some strongly dislike all forms of annuities, some like one or two types in specific situations, others think various types of annuities could be helpful for people in a variety of situations. I think a person reading this book will walk away with a good understanding of the areas of expert consensus (holding a portfolio diversified across risk levels), areas of legitimate debate (annuities, long-term care insurance), and what charlatans to avoid (crypto).

Is that good or bad? It depends! I think someone who wants to get a survey of the field and is interested in doing a lot of additional reading and mulling through things could end up with a really great and highly personal strategy for retirement. People who are more indecisive by too many options or feel overwhelmed may be better served by Jane's book.

I should also mention that "How To Retire" seems more timeless to me. The subjects Christine writes about are evergreen and pretty big-picture. There are a couple of discussions related to specific elements of the tax code that have changed in recent years and may change again in the future, like Roth IRAs not being subject to RMDs or IRMAA surcharges for Medicare Part B, but for the most part these conversations would have been as relevant in the 90s as they are in the 2020s. "How To Make Your Money Last" has both the big-picture and the granular details: Jane rewrote it after the TCJA to incorporate the latest changes in the code, and has a lot of good, specific tactical advice. So Jane's book is more directly applicable, but also may not age as well as Christine's.

Oh, and a final general comment: I've been focusing mostly on the financial aspects of retirement, both in this post and as my focus in reading, but both books put a strong emphasis on the non-financial aspects as well. "How To Retire" in particular is probably more than half about emotional and social topics, including motivations behind retirement, keeping a sense of purpose, the difference between how men and women define themselves, sources of happiness, finding ways to keep busy and fulfilled, how to talk with loved ones about end-of-life issues, and many more. Partly because of this, I think "How To Retire" is probably especially useful to people like me who are still a ways off from retirement, as it's geared to prompt thinking about subjects that many people don't consider until much later.

All in all, I wouldn't say this is essential reading, but is definitely worth picking up if you or a loved one are in or nearing retirement. It would make for a great conversation starter, as an early warning for potential blind spots or "known unknowns" lurking in the future. It doesn't serve as a complete solution to retirement planning, but would make for a great introduction to that journey.