“Try these ones next,” the dragon said, sliding a plate of cannoli across the table towards the knights. They were perfectly baked, sweet and flaky.
“Superb,” the captain said. “But I must say, you are the first dragon I’ve ever heard of taking up baking.”
The dragon sighed, removed their hat, and crushed it in their claws. “When I was a hatchling, my mother ate one of your kingdom’s princesses. I believe it was your grandfather that slew her for it.” The captain coughed.
“I want to put that ugliness behind us. Please consider this my application for Royal Patisier.”
Animal Crossing New Horizons
Developed and Published by Nintendo
Played on Nintendo Switch
The Skinny: How Tom Nook saved civilization
It’s difficult to give a review of Animal Crossing: New Horizons this early. Meant to be played on a scale of months rather than hours, it has a very unique play experience. It is essentially a Skinner Box game in which you create and help manage a town on a deserted island. As the days go by, and you harvest the island’s resources, more and more characters come to live on the island, and new services like a museum and clothing shop are unlocked. But unlike scummier versions of this model on mobile devices or Facebook, there is no invitation to pay real-world currency to speed the process along. You just have to wait the until the next day, or until you’ve amassed enough resources.
This creates a gameplay loop that is both relaxing and frustrating. Life on your island proceeds at its own pace. And once you’ve gathered the day’s supplies, visited the shop, and have done the day’s errands to develop the island, there isn’t that much left to do. You can always do more fishing and bug hunting, visit the residents and design your own clothing and decorations, but the game trains the player fairly quickly to not try and push the game. There’s only so much useful things you can do in a play session.
One neat feature is the ability to visit other islands, both locally and through the internet. It’s fun to see how other players set up their islands, trade your stuff, and generally just run around.
Animal Crossing New Horizons is a chill game about friendship and building community. Its release at the end of March has been a balm during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it has provided a novel way to visit with friend and to be social while social distancing. The one problem I have with the game are the loading times. Whenever you open the game, it takes a bit of time to load, and the online features all involve a rather long wait as well. This would be an ideal game to play on a break at work, if the loads didn’t take up so much time.
Animal Crossing New Horizons has been a chill, calming distraction in stressful times. Its miniature deserted island world is filled with relaxing mini-games and surprising discoveries. But you have to play it at its pace. The game is available for the Nintendo Switch as a cartridge or downloadable from the Nintendo Eshop. If you need a quiet distraction, why not make a town and fill it with animal friends?
By the way, if you want to visit my town, my Friend Code is SW-3842-8900-0319. See you on The Island
The assassin waited outside the warlord’s receiving chamber, dressed in the rough traveling clothes of a messenger.
He’d seen the type many times over his long career. All he need do was provoke the warlord’s anger with bad news, and fight back when the warlord tried to kill him for it.
He’d faked the letter exceptionally well, and long use had honed his delivery.
“Her answer, milord, is no.”
“Then it will be war,” The supposed tyrant said, and handed him double the expected fee. “Stay safe.”
The assassin left, bewildered. He’d never seen such behavior in all his life.
The landlord crumpled the newspaper into a ball and tossed it into the fire. He did it calmly, methodically, without a hint of rage on his face.
The islanders had called for a rent strike. Foolishness. Was there not fruit to sell? No shells to collect? And certainly his mortgages were high, but he never charged a bell of interest.
He’d made his connections, and he treated them well. But this? This was an insult. And he knew who was to blame.
The Resident Representative was about to learn that Tom Nook was the one animal you should never cross.
You can now support Nutty Bites by donating to the Patreon campaign, through paypal or venmo () or through any other method. Patrons get the private RSS feed where you get shows before the main feed and you get special episodes like Nutty Bites after Dark and special bonus content; a thank you read on the podcast; and your promo or the promo of your choice played on the show (like in this episode).
The helicopter landed in the middle of an overgrown courtyard. The hostess turned and addressed the passengers. They were all men, armed to the teeth, and Americans. Typical. “You know the rules,” she said. It was a familiar script, and they all knew it by heart. It was all part of the show. “Local time is 6:45AM, sunrise. You have until 7:50PM to find the coffin. Then it’s His turn. I’ll be back at midnight to pick up the survivor.” They exited, she mugged for the hidden cameras, and lifted off again.
“Gentlemen, may the best hunter win!”
Chrononaut Cinema Reviews is presented by https://www.skinner.fm and http://hughjodonnell.com, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.
“And let’s stretch with your body…” The Yoga instructor said, leaning impossibly forward. “And hold.”
In the front row, the little slime did their best. They were good at stretching, but holding the pose was alway so difficult. There was an embarrassing dripping noise, followed by a splash.
“Let’s take five, everyone.” As the class shuffled out, the beholder bobbed over to the slime.
“Everybody saw that, you know.”
They burbled out a dejected sigh. “I know the Dark Lord wants us in shape when the heroes arrive, but why did he put the mimic in charge of yoga class?”
Far Sector #1-5
Written by N. K. Jemsin
Drawn and Colored by Jamal Campbell
Lettered by Deron Bennett
Published by DC’s Young Animal
The Skinny: A Green Lantern story unlike anything you’ve read before.
Far Sector is a comic likely unlike anything you’ve read before. Triple Hugo award-winning author N. K. Jemsin has teamed up with phenomenal artist Jamal Campbell to tell the story of Sojourner “Jo” Mullein. The newest member of the Green Lantern Corps, Jo protects The City Enduring, a Dyson Swarm with a population of over 20 billion. Home to three previously waring civilizations, the city has preserved the peace for the last 500 years by forgoing their emotions. But when she investigates the first murder in centuries, she finds tensions ready to snap.
This comic is unlike anything I’ve read from a DC in a very long time. The City Eternal is a very different setting than the rest of the universe, far removed from epic struggles of the Justice League or even the tropes commonly found in the other Green Lantern books. It’s a story about a queer black woman cop (admittedly with superpowers) on her own and in over her head. The setting is constantly surprising, but Jo is the star of the show, and Jemsin sculpts her with more humanity than we get from Hal Jordan or Bruce Wayne.
The comic is further elevated by Jamal Campbell’s stunning artwork. Intricate, richly colored, and imaginative, it’s everything you could want in a space comic. Campbell makes Jemsin’s characters breathe in ways that are far removed from DC’s house style. No easy task when you’re drawing sentient, holographic AI and carnivorous plant people. Also, issue five has the best design for a Guardian of OA that I have ever seen.
Weird, wonderful and completely engrossing, Far Sector is the Space Opera Detective Comic you’ve been waiting for. Issues 1-5 are currently out, so if you can get to your local comics shop, or they can deliver, see if you can order them. And of course you can check them out on Comixology. Stay safe, and be good to each other!
Podcast: CCRC63 – Thunder in Paradise S1E2
April 3, 2020
hughjodonnell CCR, CCR Commentary, Podcast, Uncategorized CCRC, Commentary Track, hugh, Jurd, Mack, Opopinax, Rich The T T Leave a comment
Tonight your hosts, Hugh, Rich the Time Traveler, Opop, Jurd, and special guest, Mack of Mack & the Movies!, return to the scene of an ongoing crime.
Click HERE to listen to the commentary track!
And here’s the awfulness in person:
Chrononaut Cinema Reviews is presented by https://www.skinner.fm and http://hughjodonnell.com, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.