Can’t touch this

I was talking to a coworker today about the recent holiday weekend. Neither of us went to the fireworks, because we don’t really like crowds–especially post-COVID. And I mentioned how it’s kind of amazing that I actually went to a convention as big as Dragon Con about ten years ago, considering people were packed into the hallways like sardines. Simpler times, and I guess being in costume helped. But that brings us to today’s word.

aphenphosmphobia, noun – the fear of being touched

Learned from: Death Stranding (PC, Mac, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Kojima Productions

Published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, 505 Games (2019)

If you know me personally, you know I am not a fan of Hideo Kojima. At all. I think his games are bloated and pretentious, and the man really should just start making movies. But Death Stranding was free on the Epic Games Store at one point, and for that price, I figured it was worth a try. I still want my money back.

In the future, a cataclysmic event has fractured the United States, and inexplicably caused what remains to look an awful lot like Iceland. Invisible monsters roam the land which can only be detected by weird test tube babies, and if someone dies they explode for some reason, unless their bodies are properly dealt with. And we’re expected to take all this seriously, when the game is populated by characters with names like “Die-Hardman.”

I hate Hideo Kojima so much.

Anyway, our hero, Sam Porter Bridges, is tasked with delivering cargo from one isolated settlement to another, to try and reestablish connections between people. And in case the “joke” in his name flew over your head, I’m pretty sure the game explains to you how fitting it is, considering he’s porting things to people to build bridges. Oh, and Sam has aphenphosmphobia. The irony!

Most of the “gameplay” involves you guiding Sam across vast expanses of empty, bizarrely treeless wilderness (because again, post-apocalyptic America looks like Iceland, I guess), listening to mellow music and trying to avoid any slopes that are too steep–because Sam might fall and hurt himself or damage his cargo. And honestly, the implied threat of having to make the long, boring trek back to base after making a misstep was enough to keep me meticulously navigating him through the first mission. Then I got to the second task, and encountered roving gangs of people who are just so keen on making deliveries, that they attack any couriers they see to try and steal their cargo, and I just couldn’t anymore.

I don’t care how cool the boss fights look. They aren’t worth suffering through the rest of the game.

Nice going, birdbrain

Earlier this week, I went to an author presentation at the library, where James McCommons was talking a bit about his book, The Feather Wars, about the history of bird conservation. My father got me interested in birdwatching at an early age, so while this might not sound like the most thrilling subject to you, dear readers, it was right up my alley. Even when he got into some sobering territory, like how Canada Geese were endangered at one point, or how passenger pigeons used to outnumber human beings and now they don’t exist at all. And in a way, that brings us to today’s word.

birdlime, noun – an adhesive spread on twigs for the purposes of trapping birds

Learned from: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (Nintendo 3DS)

Developed by P-Studio

Published by Atlus (2014)

Birdlime was a real thing, used by real-world hunters/poachers in the past to easily catch large numbers of small birds by literally sticking them to a branch so they couldn’t fly away. Sometimes it was for food (people ate songbirds the way we eat chicken in the 19th century), sometimes for fashion (it wasn’t just larger birds like dodos and ostriches that had feathers women wanted for their hats), but either way, there was a steady demand.

Pretty depressing stuff, when you think about it. The usage in the game was, er…quite a bit different.

Believe it or not, there was a time before Atlus just endlessly milked Persona 5 for all it was worth. Instead, they milked Persona 4. There was a lackluster anime series, fighting game spinoffs, dancing game spinoffs, and in the Persona Q series, first-person dungeon crawler spinoffs. Most of these side projects found convoluted ways to get the cast from Persona 4 and Persona 3 together on the same screen, to varying degrees of narrative coherence. Some of these were actually pretty fun, regardless of whether they made much sense.

Persona Q had the extended casts running into each other due to some sort of time travel MacGuffin, as an excuse to have the cartoonish Teddy fight alongside the knife-wielding dog, Koromaru; or the robot, Aigis, fight next to the emotionally distant (some might almost say “robotic”), Naoto.

At one point, you can find a weapon for Aigis called the “Lime Howitzer,” a long-range cannon that fires birdlime. Which I think in game terms meant it had a chance to debuff the enemy’s speed, or paralyze them or something. So, a much more whimsical take on the stuff than the historical use of it.

Also, the art style in these spinoffs might be a bit divisive in a *Windwaker* sort of way.

The fury of a thousand suns

Part of what I love about this blog is that I occasionally still find new words to add to it in the present day. Coming home from an awful day at work and playing a good game is a welcome relief; discovering a new word in the process is even better. And believe me, the days at work lately have been truly abysmal. We aren’t operating with a skeleton crew so much as a stick figure drawn by a kid in the remedial class. Barebones would be an improvement, and it’s making me increasingly angry, especially since the closest end in sight is at least a month away. That’s a story for another time, but in a roundabout way, it brings us to today’s word.

sinter, verb – to heat a powder until it bonds into a solid

Learned from: Mina the Hollower (PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch 1&2, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Yacht Club Games

Published by Yacht Club Games (2026)

Mina the Hollower is an interesting little game that’s a bit like old-school Zelda on steroids. You play as the eponymous Mina, a mouse engineer who’s tasked with repairing a group of generators you built some time ago, because they’re mysteriously breaking down. Along the way, you’ll die a lot, fight a wide variety of enemies, and occasionally throw their remains into the trusty bone sinterer in your hideout to use as resources for leveling up. You know, just like Zelda.

Actually, there’s quite a lot here that sets Mina apart, even in just the four or five hours I’ve spent with it so far. You still have the top-down open world, an array of secondary weapons that also sometimes have utility in traversing the map, and all that, but if you dig just a little under the surface, things get more interesting and complex.

Pun fully intended, because one of the game’s core mechanics involves burrowing underground. You can do this to dodge enemies, get more distance on your jumps, move faster, unearth buried items, and more. It takes some getting used to–especially learning what you can tunnel under safely, and which things will still hurt you–but it becomes a really fun and engaging gameplay mechanic after awhile. I’m not 100% sure the game is worth the hype it’s been getting yet, but it’s not bad by any stretch.

The game thoughtfully provided its own definition. Which is about the most generous thing it’ll offer you as a player; *Mina the Hollower* is hard!

Hard to stomach

I recently got back from a weekend-long trip to visit some friends I haven’t seen in far too long. We watched terrible movies, played a bunch of board games, beat another escape room, and drank enough alcohol that by all rights, the weekend should have turned into the beginning of Disco Elysium, or maybe the old Neuromancer adventure game, at some point. Especially if you take into account that some of the booze was nearly an entire bottle of Malort. Which brings us to today’s word.

duodenum, noun – the part of the small intestine that connects to the stomach

Learned from: Earthworm Jim (Sega Genesis, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, PC, Sega CD, Sega Master System, Super Nintendo)

Developed by Shiny Entertainment

Published by Playmates Interactive Entertainment (1994)

I feel like a lot of things in this post require some degree of explanation, so let’s get the worst one out of the way. If you aren’t…acquainted with Malort, it’s a liquor most closely-associated with the Chicago area, though you can find it anywhere these days. Because we live in the worst timeline. Malort tastes like what you’d get if someone bought a crate of grapefruits, stored them in a basement next to the furnace, and upon finding them again a year later, made the decision to ferment them in a bathtub that hasn’t been cleaned since the Bush administration.

It is vile, and for some reason, one of my friends brought a bottle, and offered to go shot-for-shot with anyone else who drank it. Somehow, nobody died. Or even puked, that I’m aware of.

Earthworm Jim is a character created by the artist, Doug TenNapel, and the game he stars in could only have come out in the era it did, when Ren & Stimpy was somehow normal, and all bets were off. It was also one of those games that varied drastically, depending on which system you played it on–to the extent that the Genesis version had an entire extra level, which I believe was the lair of Doc Duodenum.

When your main character is a regular earthworm who crawls into a discarded space suit that turns him sentient, bipedal, and buff, and whose kidnapped girlfriend is an ant princess (I think), having one of his enemies be a disembodied organ who is also a mad scientist doesn’t seem any…more…weird, I guess.

At the time though, the game stood out for its fantastic art style, smooth animations, and fun platforming, as much as its large cast of bizarre characters (Evil the Cat was always a personal favorite). I remember the sequel being a bit of a disappointment, but if you can track down the original today, it’s well-worth playing.

In my headcanon, Doc Duodenum is the inventor of Malort.

I’ll take, “Things I’m Not Currently Practicing” for $200

Work. Sucks. We had a stretch for awhile, where things seemed to be going okay. Then one of my coworkers got fired for far less egregious things than a few others I could name–and we kept those people around longer. Which sucks, because I liked this one. And the bosses want to hold off on hiring anyone to replace her, because we’re having a system migration in July, and they don’t want to waste time training someone new in on the current software, only to have them have to start all over in a few weeks. Which, sensible. And that was fine; we were making do…for awhile.

Then someone in another department put in their two weeks’ notice, which was more of a month’s notice, to try and give us time to find a replacement. The bosses spent that entire month interviewing outside candidates, only to, this week, just hand the position to someone in my department. Which, again, is already understaffed. And just today, we had another one put in his two weeks’ (actually two weeks, this time), because he found a job somewhere else. So. We’re three people short from where we’re supposed to be, and the higher-ups still don’t want to fill any of the gaps until July. That means the rest of us have a month at least, where we’re just going to be pulled in three directions at once, trying to have coverage, while that system migration is looming on the horizon, and we’ll be short-staffed while dealing with people who are angry when things inevitably stop working the way they used to. Oh, and we have to be closed for at least a day at the start of July, because apparently this migration can only happen on the 1st of the month. You know, right before a holiday weekend, when shit’s going to be getting busy. *Deep breath* Which brings us to today’s word.

temperance, noun – the state of refraining from alcohol, self-restraint

Learned from: Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen (Super Nintendo, mobile, Playstation, Sega Saturn)

Developed by Quest Corporation

Published by Quest Corporation (1993)

Ogre Battle was a good game, but it was also a game from a different era. It does have the occasional modern spiritual successor (like Unicorn Overlord, which I really need to get back to), but the distinction remains. Largely, because modern games have built-in tutorials. Back then, if you sat down to play a complex strategy RPG like this, and you didn’t have the instruction manual (like me), you were probably in for a confusing, if not bad, time. It was a storage issue, I’m sure–you can only fit so much on a 16-bit cartridge, and tutorials weren’t a priority, because manuals were a thing in the box.

A handful of things did get some explanation in the game, itself, like the fact that your units would do different things, depending on where you stuck them in a formation; and I think the Tarot cards you drew at the very beginning of the game. If you drew Temperance, you could use it to cure various status effects on your troops which, despite the stodgy, puritanical implications of a card named Temperance, was actually a pretty useful ability.

Didn’t help me not get the worst ending though, when I eventually worked my way through this game. There are a lot of subsystems at work beneath the surface, and if you don’t know how to utilize them, even if you win, you essentially lose. I respect that, in hindsight, but at the time I was just confused as to what I did wrong.

Behold! The opposite of Temperance: the Sour Monkey, which seems to be the card I drew for this work year.

You oughta know

As we progress further and further into a dystopian cyberpunk future, without most of the cool tech, I occasionally find myself looking back at what might’ve been. I mean, if we’re careening toward a megacorp-controlled future anyway, we should at least have the magic from Shadowrun, or the consciousness backups of Altered Carbon, or the the cybernetic limbs of…well, any of them. Instead, it’s just the growing social and economic inequality, AI threatening our jobs, and rising international tensions and violence. Which brings us to today’s word.

aught, noun – zero, nothing

Learned from: Deus Ex (PC, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 2, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Ion Storm

Published by Eidos Interactive (2000)

Deus Ex was one of the first immersive sim games I played. You could call it an RPG. You could call it an action game. Or a stealth game. Any of those labels fit, depending on how you wanted to play it, and for the time, that was mind-blowing. Hell, you could even beat most of the bosses without directly fighting them, if you did the in-game research to find their weaknesses. You really could do anything.

Well…pretty much. The first mission or two is more or less set in stone–including the part where you’re handed a 30.06 (or thirty-aught-six) sniper rifle–because they had to set the stage somehow. Also, there’s no option to just stick with the organization you start off working for, after a certain point. Which is understandable, because the folks at Ion Storm would have had to make essentially an entire separate game if you could. And sure, the ending you get does ultimately boil down to a single choice you make in the final chapter, but everything in between is up to you.

Want to take the slow, careful, stealthy approach? Go for it. Do you desire to commit literal war crimes every time you run into an enemy? Go nuts, as long as you have enough white phosphorous rounds. Want to hack your way through every security system? Talk your way through things? A mix of any or all of the above? Just wander your way through the world, uncovering weird experiments, government coverups, maybe/possibly aliens, and more? The neon-lit world is your oyster. Deus Ex was remarkable when it released over a quarter of a century ago, and I’d wager it’s still worth visiting now. Just don’t let the blocky, low-res character models throw you off.

Somehow, a less grim future than the one we’re heading towards.

No spring! Whistle

It’s early May as I write this, and the temperature where I live got up to a balmy 43 degrees, Fahrenheit today. Or roughly 6 degrees, Celsius, for those of you in sensible parts of the world, if my math is right. And while everyone I see at work might be complaining about this, I personally think it’s glorious. Especially since the last few years, we’ve has unbearably hot summers for being this far north. If I’m being honest, it could never get much warmer than this, and I’d be perfectly content. Which brings us to today’s word.

chionophile, noun – an organism adapted to a cold environment; someone who loves the cold

Learned from: Chionophile (PC)

Developed by Tonguç Bodur

Published by Tonguç Bodur (2020)

To call Chionophile a game is a bit of a stretch. It’s really more like walking through a Bob Ross painting, and occasionally stumbling across quotes in the environment about winter, or ice, or the cold. That’s…really it. No goals, or objectives to speak of–just wandering around and absorbing the atmosphere.

It’s pretty much a walk in the woods in the winter, without having to bundle up. Or the exercise. Or the random wildlife you might happen across…okay, look, it’s a poor substitute, but it’s only like a buck on Steam. So, if you really need something tranquil and soothing to kill a little time, and you live someplace where it’s hard to actually get out in nature, it’s probably worth the price of admission. Even more so if it had a VR mode, which sadly does not seem to be the case.

While I can enjoy a good walking simulator, I generally like it when there’s some sort of story or message behind the experience. The cozy game genre has never been my thing, and Chionophile has done nothing to change that. But at least it taught me something.

SSDD

So, I’m sure all of you are probably aware of, and perhaps sick of hearing about, this past weekend’s incident at the White House correspondents’ dinner, and the fact that the Internet doesn’t seem to be buying it. Because the other “assassination attempt” leading up to the 2024 election was fake (yes, people did die, but the loathsome dung eater was never in any danger–ears don’t grow back). And considering he used this most recent one to immediately springboard into how badly he needs his shiny gold ballroom, it’s no surprise people are assuming this one was staged, too. Which brings us to today’s word.

homology, noun – a similarity between multiple things, hinting at a common origin

Learned from: Neverness to Everness (PC, Mac, mobile, Playstation 5)

Developed by Hotta Studio

Published by Perfect World Games (2026)

In other, better news this week, one of my most anticipated games of the year came out. Neverness to Everness is like Control mixed with GTA and inFamous, taking place in a massive city full of strange anomalies, and people with superpowers who investigate and subdue/contain those anomalies. In between missions and the incredibly flashy combat, you can drive around, play minigames, sightsee with drones, get arrested, escape from prison, go fishing (because of course you can go fishing in an anime game), and more. I’m only a little way’s in, and already one of the cutscenes taught me this word, as one of the characters muses over the Homology Theory that suggests the anomalies and the people with powers might all stem from the same mysterious source.

Grand Theft Auto has never really appealed to me, largely because it’s a little too real-world. In fact, I may be one of the few gamers on the planet who legitimately could not care less about GTA6. But throw in extradimensional monsters, and characters who can run up walls, and stylish anime aesthetics to boot? Now you have my attention. Time will tell if this one has true staying power, but from my initial impressions, NTE is vibrant, charming, and just plain fun.

And as it stands, I would follow this slightly derpy catgirl who thinks my character smells like cocoa on whatever adventures her heart desires.

A war crime by any other name

Well, it’s TACO Tuesday, and I for one have never been more glad. If you’ve been paying attention to…well, anything lately, you know that the United States was just hours away from committing premeditated genocide, before our witless leader agreed to a two-week ceasefire. But still, threatening to “end a civilization” is tantamount to inciting genocide, which is forbidden under the Genocide Convention of 1948, under Article 3(c). Which, in a way that is simultaneously depressing and absurd, brings us to today’s word.

flagitious, adj. – criminal, villainous

Learned from: Monark (PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Playstation 5)

Developed by Lancarse

Published by FuRyu, NIS America (2022)

Before the chances of WWIII breaking out at any given moment became increasingly non-zero, I had quite a few games coming out in spring that I was looking forward to. I guess I still am, but the growing anxiety over whether I’ll be alive to play, let alone enjoy many of them is dampening my enthusiasm. Still, I recently finished Resident Evil: Requiem (which was fantastic), and I wanted to try and hack away at a bit of my backlog before Pragmata comes out. I got through the rather short, and disappointing horror title The Chant, and I wanted something a little different, so I landed on a divisive JRPG from former Shin Megami Tensei developers, called Monark. It’s not necessarily bad so far (I’m about 6 hours in), but I’m already wondering how much the personality test gimmick really affects things beyond what equipment some characters can use. We’ll see as time goes on, since this isn’t the only word it’s taught me, in those 6 hours.

You can thank Vanitas for that. He’s this floating, black, stuffed rabbit thing that is the source of your powers, and claims to be a daemon–their spelling, not mine. He makes a pact with your character so you can better-withstand the sanity-draining mist that’s fallen over your school for reasons that are so far unexplained. The consequences of this pact are also unexplained at this point in the story, but eventually he has to get something out of it, being evil and all.

Until the answers start coming in, he assists you here and there, with cryptic advice and the aforementioned powers. He also has an affinity for alliteration, along with rhyming at every occasion. I learned today’s word when my character’s little sister glommed onto Vanitas, and I refused to help free him–leading him to call me a “foul, flagitious fiend,” if memory serves.

I unironically like this guy a lot. He’s a weird, goofy-yet-creepy mascot character, but he’s clever, erudite, and at times doesn’t seem as menacing as his daemonic nature would have you believe. No idea what his endgame is yet, but right now, he’s my second-favorite character, after Ryotaro, the delinquent heir to a wealthy family who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him.

They apparently made plushies of him, even! Which is a…bold choice for a game that I don’t believe was financially successful.

Why do I live up here?

It’s a question I get asked on occasion. My area is pretty far removed from…a lot of things, really; it’s at least a four-hour drive to get to any sort of truly large city. The local economy isn’t exactly great, property values are absurdly high, when you look at how little there is to do around here, and while there is nice scenery, it tends to be buried under multiple feet of snow for a third to half of the year. (Sometimes, multiple feet of snow fall all at once, as is the case now in Snowpocalypse, Part 9: This Time There Are Sharks for Some Reason.) And if you’re new to the region–or if you’ve never been to my neck of the woods–I can see why those things would drive you away. But if you actually spend some time in upper Michigan, and develop a feel for the place, you might find the solitude and the slower pace of life to your liking. Which brings us to today’s word.

callow, adj. – inexperienced, young, immature

Learned from: Jack Move (PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, XBox One)

Developed by So Romantic

Published by HypeTrain Digital (2022)

Jack Move is a short, sweet cyberpunk RPG about Noa, a hacker who gets wrapped up in a web of corporate intrigue while just trying to get by in a dystopian world ruled by megacorporations. Fairly bog standard stuff, but there are some emotional beats thrown in here and there, along with some fantastic pixel art. One of the more interesting bits of background plot involves a complicated history between Noa’s mother (who is dead), her father (who she feels abandoned her), and her uncle (who largely raised her).

Her uncle, Guin, is a bit of a dandy. Indulgent and permissive toward Noa, he does have his limits, and at one point where she’s getting in his face about something, Guin verbally slaps her down, calling her a “callow hypocrite.” And really, he’s not off base. Noa is young, and when you’re that age, you think you know everything. And to be fair, sometimes a teenager might know quite a bit; but sometimes, they might be in over their heads without realizing it.

That’s really what the story of Jack Move is about, at its core. Beneath all the evil corporate trappings, and cyberpunk lingo, there’s a story about a girl just trying to find her footing, discover what’s truly important, and figure herself out. Again, the game is nothing revolutionary, but it’s colorful, fun, and has a lot of heart.