The Queue: A message from the skybox

It’s that time of year, when the humidity and heat conspire, and there is a predictable, yet unpredictable, 15 minute thunderstorm almost every afternoon. Comes on suddenly, pours, then stops and the sun comes out immediately, the pavement smoking as the rain evaporates. It’s a pretty wild phenomenon I haven’t really seen in many other places, and it means the dog days of summer are truly upon us.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions and we have an umbrella just in case.

We made plans to go to the pool on Sunday at 1, and then cancelled, which is good, because at around 1:15 it rained torrentially for around 5 minutes, and then stopped. Tree limbs down, plants flattened, thunder, lightning, the whole thing.

So, it’s treating me okay, but it feels like I’m being warned or something.

I still live for the food in Pandaria. The month my Neighborhood Endeavor was in Townlong Steppes I went on a noodle kick. I don’t eat meat, but my mouth starts watering at the thought of black pepper shrimp. Just writing this response, I’m also running down the ingredients in my fridge. I know I have rice paper wrappers, but I think I want a marinated element, like a grilled tofu or vietnamese-style pickled carrots, or maybe even a kimchi, but otherwise I can definitely make some summer rolls for lunch. Peanut sauce? Peanut sauce.

Worst food is mechagnomes. The popular response in the comments was Forsaken, which, mostly, but they also have mushrooms, which I adore, and at least their offerings are organic in origin. Mechagnome food looks to be an assortment of mechanical lubricants, pure electricity, and metal. Earthen takes second with rocks, but I could at least lick most of those to be polite without much issue. Mechagnome food is straight up hazardous to even handle.

I got a bunch of notifications that new demos went live, so I suspected. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time yet to check any of them out yet, so you’ll have to check and see if any of these are any good for me:

• Moldwasher
• Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (and a witch)
• Blue Ridge Hunting
• Case Solved: The London Files
• Rivage
• About Fishing
• Desktop Explorer

I’ve been big into deduction/mystery games lately, which is a little odd, since they tend to work best if you’re staring directly at the screen at each individual pixel to see, ah, that one guy had a pinky ring on in this scene. I wonder why it’s missing now, and where it went. I don’t really have time to get good and obsessed.

I sort of like it, but it also feels less like something tailored to my interests, and more like partially that, but mostly another marketing opportunity. I have discovered some little gems via the calendar which do align with what my algorithm probably looks like. However, I’m also “discovering” some midsize games I’m very suspicious of this way. I own a single platformer (Celeste), but I keep getting recommended platformers. I was recommended FIFA, Call of Duty, all those big guys. There’s also been an uptick of demi-indies that I seem to be getting recommended, like these Blue Moon-style branded subsidiaries of studios.

And of course every AAA release on Steam is also on my personal calendar, because of course it is, but I also don’t use my Steam to track those releases, and generally don’t purchase or care about them on Steam.

The calendar itself doesn’t really help me too much, because I don’t really buy things day 1 unless I have a parasocial relationship with the creator or I’m so invested I may as well have a tattoo of the release date. It would actually be immensely more helpful if they merged that with their themed sales calendars, or allowed me to choose which I’d like to add.

So, a little helpful, I guess, but.