The Queue: Who invented Tuesdays?

I’m pretty sure it was Caesar or something, but today I’d like a refund. And a nap.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions and we’ll get around to answering them after we finish with this paperwork (because there’s always paperwork on Tuesdays).

This is a really complex question to answer, because there are so many variables at play.

I personally do like it when a developer allows me to kick them a few extra bucks, either in minor DLC like soundtracks, or even larger DLC. One of my personal faves, The Long Dark, is currently in the middle of a (very) extended “seasonally”-framed content release, which was quite blatantly a request to the community for more money to keep an idealistic little studio afloat while they (very slowly) released a whole bunch of content for this game which was initially in full release in like, 2016. I ponied up immediately, despite really hating the way they’re releasing said content. Hinterland has a very public stance against crunch, so nobody was all that surprised when the scope crept up and they blew past their initial release dates for each little chunk of content. People are a little annoyed, but it’s more at the lack of communication than the actual delay.

There are also ways to give back to devs of indie games more easily. I have a streamer friend who is obsessed with Slasher’s Keep, and I also own it despite it being pretty firmly not an Anna Game because he bought it for me, because he literally just wants to give the devs more cash and the easiest way for him to do it is to buy extra copies of the game and give them away. Though, this can also not fully work — he also purchased a ton of copies of the very NSFW management puzzle game Orgynizer, but that dev (singular) gives almost all his proceeds to Planned Parenthood.

Also, is it just me, or are indies far more likely to just give money to charity because it’s, like, the right thing to do? Hinterland also donates to Doctors Without Borders and various conservation charities, without even having a promotional pet on the store, or whatever. They just do it.

Anyway, all that said, having these specific words come out of Michael Bartholomew “Qwik” Ybarra’s mouth? Mister “Jen Oneal’s prior job was different from mine so of course our pay now is different even though we’re in the same role”? Well, my response of what he can go do to himself would probably be at home in Orgynizer, if that game weren’t so strongly structured around enthusiastic consent and everyone having a good, safe time.

But if there is an indie you love, definitely poke around, especially on their Discord, if they have one. Even if you can’t find a different way to reward them monetarily, a quick “love your game” message can be really nice.

Sorry, I was too busy LOOKING FOR QUEUE QUESTIONS.

More seriously, there is a backend to Disqus for us to go through, and I do so roughly daily, but we get a bizarre amount of spam posts to very old posts when you start seeing them in The Queue. Since a lot of us are already hanging there, it’s less of a chore.

My personal favorite is the white/gold of Holy, then the purple/black of the Void or Shadow, then the blue/gold of Azerite.

I will definitely give big props to whoever the animator was on that particular effect because it’s incredibly tough to do that color combo cheek to cheek without having it read green in spots, which would look bizarre for that particular source of power/magic/whatever, but is kind of the obvious end result of mixing yellow and blue. The Azerite yellow is very warm, almost an orange, and between the two usually reads a more orange into purple to avoid that green. Sometimes in spell effects in particular they straight up pop a streak of white in the middle.

Shadowflame does look cool, but blending a red into a purple while having distinct spots of both isn’t quite as technically difficult.

Yes.

That’s it, end of queue. No further questions, or parts of questions.