The Queue: “Queue” is actually short for its full name, “Queuenathan”

There has been some discussion lately as to the meaning of the Queue. It is, of course, a Q&A column, but that’s a Q and not a Queue (and explains why we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for questions some days). Liz claims it’s from “login queue” but none of you people are waiting to log in, unless it’s to reserve a name in Forever. Hope that went well for you this week, by the way. Personally, I think “Queue” is just short for “Queuenathan.” “Please, call it The Queue; The Queuenathan is my father(‘s column).”

Look, it’s a Friday. This is the Queuenathan, our daily Q&A column where occasionally I go off the rails and sometimes I even answer your questions.

Look, as long as you’re enjoying yourself, it’s all good. But it can be healthy to look for the signs of burnout:

• Constant exhaustion, no matter how much you rest
• Dreading things you once enjoyed — this is a big one with MMOs!
• Feeling detached, unmotivated, or emotionally numb
• Struggling to focus or making more mistakes than usual
• Feeling irritable, anxious, or overwhelmed more often than not
• Headaches, digestive issues, or muscle tension

If you’re grinding and it still feels fun, then great. If you’re grinding and the idea of grinding any further fills you with a dread feeling in the pit of your stomach, stop immediately.

I know he was a multifaceted and varied actor, but for me, Patrick Steward will forever be Jean-Luc Picard. I was a little too young to catch the original Star Trek in its prime time, so Star Trek: The Next Generation was “my” Star Trek; when it was just me and my mom growing up, watching TNG was one of our big bonding times, and Picard was always just like… the ultimate in humanity, you know? He fully believed in the potential of mankind, and even when he made mistakes he proved that he was, himself, human. (See also his entire arc with Benjamin Sisko in the transition from TNG to Deep Space Nine.)

So yeah. For me, he’ll always be associated with Picard, and that’s part of why yesterday’s news hurt. Rest in peace, Patrick Stewart. Go explore some final frontier out there.

A short list of my favorite spooky or spooky-adjacent games:

• SIGNALIS, which is what I actually played last Halloween. Classic survival horror vibes and gameplay set in a dark sci-fi future where humanity has uncovered Things It Ought Not To Have; you play as a technician Replika, Elster, looking for her lost dreams.
• Urban Myth Dissolution Center, which I’m pretty sure I’ve plugged before and will continue to do so until everyone has experienced it. Sort of a spiritual successor to the Phoenix Wright games, except instead of solving crimes in a court of law, you’re solving spooky occult mysteries in Japan for the titular Urban Myth Dissolution Center. It also has some incredibly stylish pixel art, some of which you can see in the featured art for this post!
• Inscryption, which starts out as a spooky deck-building card game in a dark cabin against an opponent who charges you with some truly grim penalties if you fail to win. And then it spirals out from there and touches a whole bunch of other genres.
• The PARANORMASIGHT series, consisting of The Seven Mysteries of Honjo and The Mermaid’s Curse, are both extremely spooky occult mysteries that straddle the line between point-and-click game and non-linear visual novel.
• SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim. Don’t look at me like that, it’s a horror game, I promise.
• Slay the Princess, which is definitely not a slow-burn surreal psychological horror and is definitely just a perfectly ordinary game where you have to slay a princess because if you don’t it’ll be the end of the world. Don’t believe her lies.

I did! Thank you both! And for reasons that I absolutely cannot get into unless you’ve fully played Titanium Court, I won’t be picking it up! (I love Titanium Court but it is a game that explicitly discourages replays and, to an even greater extent, completionism. Get your keys, open the gates, and don’t look back. Trust me.)

I’m not! It’s been many years since I actually had any kind of Halloween shindig to go to, and we don’t even have kids that come through our neighborhood for trick-or-treat. Instead, I’m going to the theatre to see You Can See Everything.