I just feel like I’m forgetting something. …THE QUEUE!

The school year is winding down for us — which means summer camps and sports are also simultaneously winding up — so stuff is about to start falling through the cracks. Hopefully we don’t forget anything important.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions, and let’s just make a headcount before we go.

While Waiting and The Berlin Apartment are two games I’ve had an eye on for a while, but honestly, any. Yes to all.

Oh wait, just saw No, I’m Not Human. That one too. Ooh, Sirens looks cool too. Oh, wait…

It’s a little tough to say conclusively just yet because I haven’t rolled credits a second time. Every time I feel like, yes, this is the last puzzle, I’m finally solving the last element before I finally finish the– aaand there’s another door with two to seven more puzzles behind it. Fab.

But the characters and the whole world (and the history you’re presented with in little glimpses and artifacts) is so rich and interesting, I can’t imagine that every T will be crossed and i dotted by the end. I would love to have other plots from the other realms and countries discussed, even if we don’t revisit the named characters. And yet, the central conceit of the shifting puzzle house is so unique that I’m not sure what the framing to continue that story could be, especially since puzzle sickos are such a specific breed.

But also, Blue Prince is in a lot of ways lightning in a bottle, and a sequel is unlikely to measure up.

Trifles, by Susan Glaspell.

Susan was a very interesting writer, in that after college she got her foot in the door by being a journalist in Iowa, reporting on the state legislature and also the murders beat, somehow. She later became a short story writer (because you used to be able to churn a consistent living doing that in between writing larger works), and then a playwright. Trifles was based, rather loosely, on a murder she covered relatively early in her career — the  December 1900 murder of John Hossack by his wife, who (allegedly) hacked him to bits with an axe.

In Trifles Susan explores the reasons why someone might (allegedly) be driven to do such a thing, especially for such trifles, as the men officially investigating the murder say. The framing is very important and telling, and the whole thing explores the role of women — both outwardly and inwardly. She also deals a good bit in the “local color” style of storytelling, particularly through the voice of the dialogue, which was popular around the turn of the century.

If you’d like to read it, I’d suggest you read A Jury of Her Peers. After the success of Trifles she rewrote it as a short story (because again, you used to be able to make a living selling short stories), and a story is always going to be easier to read, with more things like descriptions of the setting and actions, etc.

Depends on what it is and why I’m playing it — and what their definition of “hard” is. I will almost always play a platformer or metroidvania on the easiest little bumper bowling baby setting I can possibly choose.

I don’t like jumping. It gives me anxiety.

But puzzle games, crank those as hard as possible, because I’m usually there for a mental challenge. I have both a longer term The Long Dark save set to the second easiest setting as a way to just relax and vibe, but sometimes I want to really dig in and play on hard mode, so I have saves for that, too.

I will always support changing difficulty settings if you want to. I’ll add that every time I play Oblivion, I intentionally start a little toward the hard side of the slider, and every couple levels I bump it down to be easier, because that’s how I want to play an RPG in that line. I want to start off having a tough time, and then gradually gain power and become a god. Getting completely waxed by a crummy little camp of bandits when I already saw the face of god and destroyed it feels bad both narratively and mechanically. It’s interesting game design but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.