Tragicomedy

2025 has been an absolutely incredible year for games so far, which makes for a nice high point to distract us from, well…everything else. But the year’s only half-over, and we’ve already had Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (my presumptive GOTY, unless something else really floors me), Look Outside (a fantastic pixel art cosmic horror game), Blue Prince (an architectural roguelike, of all things), and the very underrated The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (a visual novel/strategy RPG from some of the creators of Danganronpa and Zero Escape). That last one brings us to today’s word.

buskin, noun – a knee-length boot

Learned from: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (Nintendo Switch, PC)

Developed by Too Kyo Games, Media.Vision

Published by Aniplex, Xseed Games (2025)

When you go into a game with this kind of pedigree, you know you’re in for something a bit weird. Danganronpa is built around high school students getting kidnapped by a three-foot-tall, psychotic bear mascot and being forced to kill one another without being caught. The Zero Escape games are essentially escape rooms set in exotic locations, and filled with math puzzles and eccentric characters who might not be who they claim to be. Hundred Line tasks a group of unwilling highschoolers with defending a school surrounded by eternal flames, from alien(?) invaders for 100 days, because something hidden inside could doom humanity. But despite how bonkers these concepts are, the narratives they weave usually end up being surprisingly engaging.

Hundred Line has the same pedigree of quirky characters as the earlier games I mentioned, from a mascot character who doesn’t seem quite as evil as Monokuma from the Danganronpa games; to an orphan who hates the world and doesn’t care if it burns; to a thug with a heart of gold; to…someone whose initial impression can only be summed up as “Japanese Harley Quinn.”

Darumi is a clearly depressed, possibly psychotic ball of chaos, who goes into this situation fully expecting it to be a game of death (hello, fourth wall), and disappointed when she’s not expected to kill her fellow students. She has a penchant for ultra-gory horror movies, flings herself into combat with wonton abandon, and claims to not be very smart, while periodically peppering her dialog with (sometimes jumbled) philosophical references, and ten-dollar words like “phonemic” and “buskin.” At least I think it was Darumi who made some reference to a “sock and a buskin,” which it turns out are actually also terms for the classic Comedy and Tragedy masks from ancient Greek theater, since the tragic characters would wear longer boots, while comedic characters would parade around in thin tights referred to as “socks.” For a game about cartoonish space aliens, and teens with superpowers, that’s a pretty deep cut, and part of what I love about the writing from these creators.

I *might* be wrong in attributing that reference to Darumi, but it seems like something that would come out of her mouth.

Busy news day

I really wish I’d learned the word “haboob” (a dust storm) from a game, because it would be perfect, considering there’s one sweeping across Florida right now. Also, I guess I am perpetually 12 years old. But speaking of 12-year-olds, Elon Musk attested today to the worst-kept secret in the world, by saying Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. And in a roundabout way, that does bring us to today’s word.

seraglio, noun – a harem

Learned from: Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (3DS)

Developed by Intelligent Systems

Published by Nintendo (2017)

I don’t think I need to elaborate more on the connection between this word and the Epstein files. But even in the context of the game, it seems damningly relevant.

The story takes place on the continent of Valentia, where the warlike nation of Rigel, and the peace-loving nation of Zofia find themselves at the disastrous end of a long truce. The fantasy hippies of Zofia have gotten so decadent that one villager opines that the king is “more likely to frolic in a seraglio than actually rule” (which, again, seems oddly apropos), while the warmongers of Rigel…well, they didn’t need much more reason to make their move. War is brewing, and your group of backwater youths gets caught up in the middle of it.

Echoes is one of the odd Fire Emblem entries that foregoes the “weapon wheel,” where swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords, making it feel a bit less like a part of the overall series than most installments. Further differentiating it from the classic Fire Emblem style, are dungeons that you can actually run around in, in real-time, finding secrets and trying to get the drop on enemies before launching into the more standard tactical battles. It’s a unique game in the series, but its differences often work to its advantage, letting it stand out from the crowd.

Oh yeah, and I guess some sort of new console from Nintendo came out today, too, or something. So, there’s that.

It could always be worse

And it probably will. Speaking mainly to my US readers here, but I mean…*gestures broadly*. In a month, they’ll probably have banned schools, and sent children back to the mines, with breaks only for a few hours of sleep, and witch burnings where attendance is mandatory. I mean, what, do we expect kids older than seven to eat for free? What kind of traitorous, commie BS is that?

You might say that this country is broken. And that rather than fixing anything, the people in charge are just stomping on the pieces until they’re small enough that nobody will complain. Which brings us to today’s word.

banjanxed, adj. – ruined, broken

Learned from: Small Saga (PC)

Developed by Darya Noghani

Published by Darya Noghani (2023)

Small Saga falls into that timeless subgenre of fantasy that crops up every now and then, centered on tiny creatures that live among humans, and their hidden, unnoticed civilizations behind our walls and below our feet. The earliest example I’m familiar with is The Borrowers, published back in 1952, which is probably because Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty (2010), is a direct adaptation of it. But there’ve been plenty of others in between, from The Littles, to The Indian in the Cupboard, to The Secret of NIMH, and possibly Redwall (I never read that series, so I don’t know if there are humans in it). The point is, there’s something endearing about the thought that tiny animals (or people) are living complex lives all around us, just beyond our notice.

Small Saga takes that premise, and gives it a bit of a darker twist. Humans are seen as literal gods; their tools are seen as holy (or at least incredibly powerful) relics; their pets are guardian beasts out of legend. And they are not kind to rodents. You play as Verm, a young, aspiring mouse knight, whose foray into the gods’ food vault goes horribly wrong. The real story picks up when you’ve gotten older, more jaded, and filled with an enduring desire for revenge against the Yellow God (an exterminator in a hazmat suit), who ruined everything.

Along the way, your quest for vengeance will see you joined by various other rodents (and rodent-adjacent animals), from a squirrel with a flute made from a hollowed-out pencil, to a mole wizard who secretly collects human relics (including a not-Gameboy with a banjanxed screen). They make for quite a colorful cast in a JRPG-style adventure that truly has a lot of heart. And it’s even more impressive, considering I think this game was made by just one person. It’s nowhere near as astounding a feat as Expedition 33, but if that smash hit has got you curious about other worthwhile indie RPGs, Small Saga is definitely worth a try.

Here comes the new boss

It’s always a little surreal for me, when a piece of news takes the world by storm, and I personally end up finding it hard to care less. Nothing against those who do, but when all everyone’s talking about is some British monarch getting married, or some celebrity having a baby, and I’m sitting here with my life not having changed one bit, it’s just…weird. It’s the same thing with the new pope. But since it’s functionally the only piece of news for the day, I figure I may as well use it as a lead in for another word.

zealot, noun – a religious fanatic

Learned from: Diablo II (PC, Mac)

Developed by Blizzard North

Published by Blizzard Entertainment (2000)

Okay, okay, put down the pitchforks and stop building the pyre, because–plot twist–this word is not in any way a direct commentary on the new or previous pope. Francis seemed like a genuinely kind, compassionate person from what little I read about him in the news, and while Leo, the new guy, might get less glowing reviews from the LGBTQ community, he doesn’t sound too bad overall. If nothing else, any prominent figure who pushes back against the policies of the current US government has to have something good going for them. Because honestly, the red hats seem to embody zealotry far more than Pope Leo–his followers might actually hold him to certain standards of conduct.

But enough about real-world cultists; let’s talk Diablo II. Act 3 of the game takes you to a sprawling jungle, filled with ruined temples, sodden caves, and enough dead-ends and switchbacks to make it my least-favorite section simply due to all the backtracking. But amidst all the tribes of poison dart-spitting pygmies and swarms of giant spiders, you’d find bands of crazed followers of…I think he was a fallen paladin, or something? It’s been a pretty long time, but I remember having to cut my way through swathes of zealots at various points, to press forward. That, and the fact that they were about the only things in the entire bloody jungle that weren’t poisonous in some way, shape, or form.

The fact that I have so few solid memories of Act 3 is a testament to how little impact it left on me, despite being one of the bigger parts of the game. But even the bad parts of Diablo II can still be pretty fun…sometimes.

Dimly lit, full of dead-end paths, broken up by rivers that make progress take even longer…I can’t defend this. I’m not in a cult.

Upside down

As I write this, it’s May 2nd, 2025. If you’re in the United States, that means it’s 5/2/25: a number that looks the same if you flip it upside down, at least in certain typefaces, and so long as you ignore the slashes and the first two digits of the year. If you’re in other, saner parts of the world that list the date in a more sensible day/month/year order, then this happened back in February. Sorry, we Americans do a lot of things in the stupidest way possible. Anyway, this brings us to today’s word.

strobogrammatic, adj. – something, as a number, that appears the same upside down as it does right-side up

Learned from: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch)

Developed by Simogo

Published by Annapurna Interactive (2024)

I’d always thought that numbers that looked the same upside down were neat–I mean, who didn’t spell out “BOOBIES” on a calculator at some point as a kid? Though in that case, it’s not a true strobogrammatic number, since the result isn’t identical to how it looks right-side up. Or like when we got a verification key fob for one of the stations at work, and I inadvertently read it upside down and got us locked out of the system.

Anyway, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes pulls a lot from real-life escape rooms, being full of number and word puzzles, some of which are strobogrammatic. The game, itself, is…weird. It’s like if you threw Twin Peaks, The Twilight Zone, Clue, and an international film festival into a blender, and topped it with a dash of The King in Yellow. It casts you as an artist(?) called to a remote mansion at the behest of an eccentric filmmaker, who wants to use your talents to create a truly transcendental work of art that may unmake reality itself…maybe.

Or maybe not. It’s a very surreal game that’s open to interpretation nearly every step of the way. I don’t want to say much else, because it’s very much worth playing. It’s a very unique, memorable narrative that stands out among…pretty much anything else out there.

It works with words sometimes, too! Turn this upside down, and it spells “abpa.”

When you boil it down

If you’ve been on the Internet at all this week, I think it’s statistically impossible that you haven’t heard about the Oblivion remaster. I have mixed feelings on it, but the original did teach me some words, so let’s get that out of the way first.

alembic, noun – an obsolete device used in distillation

Learned from: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, XBox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios

Published by Bethesda Softworks (2006, 2025 for the remaster)

Alchemy can be a big part of Elder Scrolls games if you want it to be. You can start with stuffing random toadstools in your mouth, and end up with an entire collection of beakers and tubes to distill more potent tinctures.

There, I’ve got the word out of the way. Now I want to talk about this remaster, starting with the good: It’s more or less an entire remake from the ground up, and it looks fantastic…and it costs $50. In an age where Nintendo is selling remakes of 8 year old games for $80+, this game that’s old enough to vote looks better than the shinier versions of Zelda, undoubtedly took more work, and is selling for at least thirty bucks less. That’s admirable, and I think more people should be talking about it, because it’s selling like hotcakes and it blows Nintendo’s bullshit pricing out of the water.

Unfortunately…it’s selling like hotcakes. Look, the industry is positively drowning in remakes of games we’ve already played. And the hotcakes sales of Oblivion Remastered is only adding weight to that trend. Plus, there are other games coming out–including some very, very good ones this very week–from indie developers who could really use the sales.

Want another RPG? Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been incredible, just in the few hours I’ve gotten to play of it. Gorgeous world. Likeable and well-written characters. Engaging combat. Surprising emotional notes. Also $50.

Is horror more your jam? Post Trauma looks to be a decent stab at the Silent Hill formula, and came out the same damn day as Oblivion Remastered. I’ve seen no one talking about it–and yes it’s a different genre, but that doesn’t stop all the attention on the Internet from being on Oblivion. Oh, and it’s only $15, and I’m sure the developers would love to make another sale or two.

Hell, one of the creators behind Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a mix of visual novel and turn-based tactical RPG from the minds behind Danganronpa and Zero Escape, has reportedly sunk his life savings into this project. And here comes Oblivion Remastered to possibly drive him into poverty. This is the most expensive, at $60, but also potentially the most distinctive of the three I mentioned.

Look, I’m glad people are enjoying revisiting a game they grew up with, or discovering it for the first time, and I’d never tell them to stop having fun. But I really feel like I need to highlight that other games do exist, that actually have original concepts and fresh ideas. Just…look around at what else is out there? Please? Bethesda doesn’t need your money as much as some of these smaller developers.

Everything old is new again

Pixel graphics! ’80s references across all of popular media! The stock market crashing! Retro is in, baby, and it’s only a matter of time before 3D glasses make a comeback in movie theaters again…assuming theaters survive the streaming wars. But hey, paying way too much to go see a movie in dirty room full of loud people is totally retro too, so maybe there’s hope! Anyway, this all does lead us to today’s word.

anaglyph, noun – an image printed in two different colors overlayed across each other, to give the illusion of being in three dimensions when viewed through special glasses

Learned from: Balatro (PC, Mac, mobile, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch, XBox One, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by LocalThunk

Published by Playstack (2024)

Balatro, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, or you’re reading this in the future, is a deconstruction of the roguelike deckbuilding genre, where there are no monsters, no dungeons, no trips across the stars–just poker. Your cards are literal playing cards that can be modified in various ways to give more points, generate more money, trigger multiple times, generate other cards, etc. It’s a game that you really have to play to understand its appeal, but it’s simple, addictive, and worth every penny.

As you play and learn winning combos, Balatro offers you ways to up the challenge, from decks that are missing cards, to higher stakes runs that impose restrictions on what you can do. But the further you go, the more you unlock, and beating the game on the “black chip” difficulty unlocks the Anaglyph Deck, which gives you a free double tag whenever you beat the boss blind at the end of an ante. That probably doesn’t mean much if you haven’t played it, but it can be a useful bonus. If you’re lucky.

Once upon a time, these were *the* coolest thing. I swear.

I don’t think they know about second winter…

Ages ago, comedian and then-anchor at The Daily Show, Lewis Black, came to the town where I’d been going to college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to do a stand-up show. My friends and I managed to get tickets for some of the last seats still available, way in the back of the auditorium, but I’m glad we went, because the way he kicked off the show still sticks with me. Not verbatim, but close enough:

“I don’t know if anyone’s told you people, but it’s April! There’s supposed to be birds singing, and flowers blooming, and fucking grass! But I look around here, and everything’s white, and gray, and dead–I want to slit my wrists, just so I can see some color!”

Welcome to da U.P., eh? Which brings us to today’s word.

isochoric, adj. – performed, maintained, or existing under a constant volume

Learned from: The Bazaar (PC, Mac, mobile [soon, as of this writing])

Developed by Tempo

Published by Tempo (2025)

The Bazaar is an interesting mix of Slay the Spire, Backpack Hero, and Team Fight Tactics, that has been devouring my free time since the open beta dropped a few months ago. It’s in full release now, and it’s still free to play if you want to check it out. There are some cosmetic purchases, and some cards you can buy–but those cards will become available for free at the end of their respective seasons, if you don’t mind waiting.

Anyway, you play as one of several heroes (though only Vanessa is available to start; you have to unlock the rest), making their way through the dangerous streets of the titular Bazaar. Vanessa is a pirate, Pygmalien is kinda-sorta a buff orc, Mak is an immortal alchemist, and my personal favorite, Dooley, is a little spherical robot pyromaniac. It’s one of his cards, the Isochoric Freezer, that taught me today’s word, a small item which freezes one of your opponent’s items for a time.

The Bazaar is PvP, but there’s no direct interaction between you and your opponents; if you’re like me, and steer away from multiplayer games in general due to toxic communities, then rest easy. So, you start out with nothing, and get to pick from one or two starting items to begin the match. These might be enchanted cards, or skills, or just extra money (I think; I never pick this option), which usually form the basis of your strategy. Pick a toxic blowfish for Vanessa’s first item, and you’re probably going to go for a poison build; pick the hamster wheel core for Dooley, and you’re probably going to focus on friend cards; etc. There are a ton of different approaches you can take, and since you start from zero each time, it’s fun to experiment.

Rounds are broken up into days, and days into six hours each. You’ll typically get four hours each day to acquire cards, have random events, buy skills and consumables, etc. Midway through the day, you’ll fight a non-player monster, to get XP and usually an item/skill if you win, and at the end of the day you’ll go up against another player, with their own deck layout. The cards in each of your decks activate automatically on cooldowns, so it’s all on you to arrange them in the most efficient way, and hope it’s enough to win. Sure, the RNG can screw you over sometimes, if your opponent has gotten better cards than you, but there’s still a lot of strategizing involved. Ideally, you fight until you’ve beaten 10 other players, but chances are, you’ll lose enough times that you’ll be out of the match before then. Still, it’s a ton of fun, whether you’re playing casual or ranked (ranked earns you chests if you do well enough, which contain cosmetic items and gems you can spend to unlock other heroes and things like that).

I know I’ve rambled a bit here, but The Bazaar really is a blast, and certainly worth checking out for the price point of free.

Guess the month! If you said anything but June, July, or August, you might be right!

Balrogs not included

I considered several titles for this post, including “ain’t no mountain high enough,” and simply, “you shall not pass!” but ultimately went with this one because out of all the bizarre assortment of monsters in this game, Balrogs aren’t one of them. Which brings us to today’s word.

impassable, adj. – unable to be traversed

Learned from: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain (Intellivision)

Developed by Mattel Electronics

Published by Mattel Electronics (1982)

I have to confess something here: I’ve never actually played this game. I had the other D&D game for the Intellivision, Treasure of Tarmin, but when I got the system from one of my cousins, it somehow came with the instruction manual for this game, but not the game, itself. But I sunk countless hours in to Tarmin, and I always wondered what this mysterious other game would be like to play, as I would occasionally look through the manual and dream.

Cloudy Mountain put you in charge of a team of three identical adventurers, armed only with a bow & arrow, sent on a quest to find and reunite two halves of a lost crown atop the eponymous mountain. Standing in your way was a menagerie of monsters that went from 0 to 60 (or from rat to demon) with seemingly nothing in between. I don’t know how evenly dispersed these beasts were, but the idea of fighting spiders and snakes, only to turn a corner and find a dragon or an unkillable slime seemed absurd–but also exciting–to my five- or six-year-old imagination.

But it wasn’t just things that wanted to kill you that were keeping you from your quest; various environmental obstacles barred your path. On the (presumably) randomized overworld map, there were forests you could only cut through with an ax, rivers you could only cross by boat, and color-coded mountains that either had caves or were impassable (black and brown, respectively).

I’m aware that I’ve had ample opportunity to download a ROM of this game, and finally experience it after all these years…but I know it could probably never live up to the experience I dreamt up in my imagination decades ago. Plus, the Intellivision controller looked like an old-school phone receiver with a paddle on the bottom of it, and I really don’t know how you’d effectively replicate that on modern hardware. (A numeric keypad, sure, but for the analog paddle it almost seems like you’d need a Joycon or something in your other hand.)

I’m sure it doesn’t look like much to daydream about, but as a small child, I imagined a story in every one of those mountains.

And let loose the dogs of war

When people think of cyberpunk movies, the first one that probably comes to mind is Blade Runner–and for good reason. It’s an amazing film, and a shining example of the genre. It’s also not at all what reminded me of today’s word; that would be the mostly-forgotten cyberpunk flick, Split Second, starring Rutger Hauer and Kim Cattrall. My wife and I watched it recently, because I told her it’s like a really good Shadowrun adventure, just from the side of law enforcement–a statement I still stand by. It’s got the grimy underbelly of a large city, shady characters, and a serial murder case full of occult underpinnings and strange goings-on. Anyway, this brings us to today’s word. I promise.

havoc, noun – mass destruction, chaos, and confusion

Learned from: Major Havoc (arcade)

Developed by Atari, Inc.

Published by Atari, Inc. (1984)

So, in Split Second, there’s a guard dog that features in a couple scenes. He’s a big old boy (a Rottweiler, I think), who the credits say was played by a pooch with the real-life name of Havoc. My wife and I agree that’s a great name for a dog–and that it might be an even better name for a little dog, for the comedic factor.

Major Havoc, the game, is also kinda cyberpunk in its presentation: lots of bright, almost neon polygonal vector graphics, like what people in the ’80s thought the Internet would look like. I think the title is actually the main character’s military rank, and it pits him in a quest to fight his way to various space stations, board them, make his way through their maze-like interiors, and set their reactors to self-destruct, ideally escaping before everything blew up. It was an interesting juxtaposition of shmup, physics-based landing simulator (a la Lunar Lander), and platformer. So you may be asking yourself, “Why have I never heard of it?” or “Why didn’t it ever get ported to home consoles?” Well, dear reader, that would be because of the game’s ludicrous controls.

Most arcade games control movement with a joystick: a nice, simple, intuitive interface. Less common was the trackball, sort of a stationary mouse that you spun in place in the direction you wanted your character to go–a little awkward, but with the added benefit of controlling speed. A handful of arcade cabinets even had simple buttons for left/right, or acceleration. For Major Havoc, Atari looked at all of those and said, “Nah, all that crap’s for squares. Check this out!” and invented the absolute worst control scheme I’ve ever seen, making you move by spinning a cylinder, while assigning a button to make your character (in the bases) awkwardly jump. Like, it sounds simple enough, but I remember it being sluggish and unresponsive in practice.

But hey, this was the wild west of game development; nobody really knew what would work until they tried it. Major Havoc isn’t a good game, but it’s one the left a mark on me all the same. Perhaps for all the wrong reasons.