UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

9 thoughts on “558 – Cotton Clad Calamity”

  1. Raznaak

    Yup, he’s a bastard XD

  2. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Are those pajamas available in XXXL in the gift shop?

  3. Otaku

    It’s been a while, so let me ask: Did we get a reason for him to WANT Susie dead? Not to backseat, but if we didn’t, I’m worried were about to move into “Stupid Evil” territory. Now, stupid happens, don’t get me wrong. It’s not bad storytelling for that to be the case here.

    You’ve just done a good job NOT having that be a driving factor, so the “Kill off the stars of my successful reality TV show.” seems shortsighted, otherwise. Oh, I guess I could be mistaken about the in-story reality TV show’s success. Like, if the company behind them is losing money, or they think a change in management at the ranch would make the whole thing more popular/profitable, then I can see the above scenario happening as well.

    I REALLY think I’m just forgetting something important, but that I don’t have time to deep dive to remind me of, hence the comment. >_<

    1. Deoxy

      It certainly has been stretched out over quite a while, but there have definitely been hints from quite near the beginning that whoever is running the reality TV show definitely wants her dead.

      But I certainly don’t recall any reason why.

      1. Clint

        Yeah it’s fair to not remember since it’s been a hot minute (many, many minutes) but if you feel like a refresher the most relevant bits would be the beginning of Episode 8 and the end of Episode 15. We haven’t explicitly spelled out exactly what The Exec means by his “side hustle” or who was on the other end of that phone call, though.

        I’m hoping that when the whole thing is eventually available it will make sense, or at least enough sense to have hung this narrative on.

        1. Otaku

          Thanks for the replies, Deoxy and Clint. Yeah, I’d totally forgotten about those things. Good to know!

  4. Evervigilant

    Seems about time for the two people who aren’t there to make a surprise entrance as the ace Susie didn’t even know she had.

  5. Scarsdale

    There’s still 3-5 people on her side that might be planning something. This guy is a megalomaniac with a god complex, so letting him think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed sets him up for a fall. Everything depends on those cameras, and I suspect their little stop over by the charging coffins had something to do with her actual plan, not the one the a-hole thinks it is.

  6. lyra

    Really enjoyed the opening of Zombie Ranch. I like the combination of the western setting with the zombie concept, it gives the story a really distinctive atmosphere. I’m a freelance illustrator and animator, and I’d be interested in seeing how some of these scenes could translate into motion, especially as a short animated teaser or character scene.

    If you’re ever interested in something like that, you can reach me here:

    IG: eve_verse_
    Email: [contact.lilaclines@gmail.com](mailto:contact.lilaclines@gmail.com)
    Discord: Lyralilac_

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558 – Cotton Clad Calamity
Posted on August 26, 2026 by Dawn

What would you call this? Armchair assassination? Merk-from-home?

Well, Suzie ain't dead (or undead) quite yet, so we'll just have to see if his gloating is justifiable.

Game Talk: Greedfall

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Clint

Sometimes a good trailer is all it takes to make me buy a game.

No, that’s not true. But it helps. If a game floats across my Steam feed (whose algorithms might be getting scarily accurate at showing me things I might like) and the trailer intrigues, I’ll stick it on my wishlist which basically bookmarks it for later consideration. Greedfall was one of those and I can’t remember if it was this trailer specifically which caught my attention but it’s close enough:

 

Like many trailers this one has the fault of not bothering to show any actual gameplay but the concept alone got points. It looked like a fantasy RPG set not in the usual faux-Medieval or Early Renaissance period but instead the Colonial era of the 17th and 18th Centuries, complete with a “New World” being encroached upon by the Old.

Focus Interactive is the publisher and while I can’t say all their stuff has been hits with me they’re an indie studio that at least doesn’t leave the bad corporate taste in my mouth that a soulless megalith like EA does. Anyhow when Black Friday rolled around a sale came up and I decided to take the plunge, though foregoing my usual hours-long character customization process for RPGs so I could get in and make sure nothing was a deal breaker before my two hours of active play were up and I couldn’t refund the purchase.

So anyhow, the EA comparison is relevant for more than my disgruntlement with the modern AAA gaming industry. Or I should say, more relevant than I expected.

Greedfall is a Bioware RPG in the classic sense. Meaning before EA bought out Bioware and gutted it into a corpse wearing a label it no longer deserves to brandish. Yes, I have opinions. I will not go into them right now. Just suffice it to say that Greedfall’s gameplay reminded me so much of the first Mass Effect that I was shocked to discover it doesn’t appear anyone on the dev team is a Bioware expat. In fact, the game was made in France, by spiders.

No, really.

Behold the opening titles

 

But seriously, it feels so much like Mass Effect and other Bioware offerings of their golden age, right down to the way your character reverses direction while running. Companions, dialogue choices, reputations, interactions, combat… and while I haven’t played through enough yet to find out if it’s got one of those big twists Bioware was famous for back in the day, the story is maturely presented and interesting in its complexity. Meanwhile the world is delivered pretty much as promised, and thankfully isn’t just a matter of “greedy invaders versus virtuous natives” (or vice-versa as it might have been in an earlier era). Bioware always liked having some grey areas even in a morally bipolar setting like Star Wars, and the Spiders revel in the moral murkiness of their original setting. There is a New World and there are natives and there are three main nations of the Old World each laying claim to a part, and you happen to be a highly important diplomat of the most neutral of them, a merchant kingdom who is trying to negotiate a place for your interests between the natives, the religious nation, and the science nation. Also there’s a terrible plague devastating your homeland and you’re hoping to find a cure.

You can choose to be male or female and customize your looks to an extent, including being non-white if you so wish (your name will always be De Sardet however, much like a former protagonist was always Shepherd). There are debates to be had on how white and male history truly was but the world of Greedfall establishes early on that it is most definitely not Earth, neatly sidestepping any such conversations. That said, the religious nation definitely has Catholic trappings and a Spanish flair to its style while the science nation is very Ottoman. The natives near as I can tell are somewhere between Amerindian and Pictish/Celtic in their inspirations, with a rather unplaceable accent that sounds like someone who isn’t Irish trying to sound like what they think an Irish person sounds like. As you might expect the natives have a druidic nature magic going, but the church folks have their own divine magic and the scientists have guns and alchemical mixtures for days. The New World (which is more of a large island, really) is definitely going for a temperate feel rather than Caribbean and you’ll be journeying through some lovely Autumnal forests and other tableaus of primeval North America on your quests, though no one seems to want to talk much about the active volcano at its heart.

It’s not on sale at the moment so the price tag on Steam is back up to $49.99 and I wouldn’t necessarily gush and say to pay it, unless you really pine for the good old days of Bioware past and want to support an indie title which really does have a surprising amount of polish to it. And even if the Spiders aren’t actually Bioware, they sure do seem like Bioware’s biggest fans in a way that so far I can only praise.