Junior Varsity

Yeehaw

2024-08-18 J V

Thank Goodness You’re Here

⛹🏼 J · 🎮 PS5 · ⏱️ 3h

A small yellow man sails through the air above the heads of the rotund cast of characters featured in the game. The title of the game is set in white script. Thank Goodness You're Here (2024)

Welcome to Barnsworth, England. You are a little yellow man. The town of Barnsworth needs your help while you wait for your meeting with the mayor. All you can do is run, jump, and slap.

A small yellow man stands in front of a traffic barricade that reads “Men Under Foot.” A confused looking man stares quizzically at his shovel on the other side of the barrier. The funny picture book town is a breeze to slap through.

Archival film footage of England in the middle of the 20th century. White vintage sans-serif typography spells out “In Co-Operation with Panic.” The presentation is a cozy mix of archival footage, fuzzy type, and chunky sounds.

Pause menu for the game’s controller settings. The background is archival film footage of a large steel machine in front of a blue sky with scattered white clouds. Overlaid on this image is a graphic of the PS5 controller with three controls annotated. The left joystick has an arrow pointing to it with a label that reads “move”, the X button reads “jump”, and the square button reads “slap”. The game has three controls: move, jump, and slap.

A meat pie shop fills with smoke from the oven. The owner of the shop and an employee stand behind the service counter. A delivery man with a hand cart and cardboard boxes stands at the front door. The employee behind the counter looks worried and says “Does the Pie Machine usually fill the shop with big plumes of black smoke?” Big Ron's Big Pies needs your help getting ready for the lunch rush.

A maintenance worker with a large grey mustache says “Oh you again, when am I going to see the back of you, you wee melon head” to our small yellow protagonist as he holds him up by the head with a plunger. Everyone is sick of your wee melon head.

Our small yellow protagonist floats high above the town of Barnsworth, suspended by a large net with a balloon inside. Barnsworth is only a few streets and shops.

PS5_IMG_7411 Everyone needs a little help from our tiny guy.

I was laughing hysterically the entire time I played this game. It only took a few sittings and I thought it was more a concise and guided version of Untitled Goose Game by the same publisher Panic.

I recommend this game for fans of The Mighty Boosh, Garth Margenghi’s Darkplace, or any weird British comedy you could imagine Matt Berry being in because he’s also in this.

2024-08-08 Games J

Harold Halibut (2024)

⛹🏼 J · 🎮 PS5 · ⏱️ 22h

Harold gazes at an alien swimming outside the window of an underwater spaceship. Portraits of the game’s eclectic cast surround Harold. The title of the game is set in white blocky hand lettering. Harold Halibut searching for answers in his mundane routine as an interplanetary janitor.

Harold Halibut is a day-dreaming maintenance worker employed by All Water, a corporate conglomerate managing the dwindling population of the shipwrecked FEDORA I spaceship. Decades ago, this ship crashed into the watery depths of an alien planet during a failed expedition to find a new Earth.

Harold sits on a bed in a cramped utility closet. He says to himself, “Hoo boy. What a day. Here’s hoping tomorrow is a bit more relaxed.” Someone still has to do the washing up in outer space.

A futuristic PDA featuring a screen full of deliberately inscrutable symbols next to lined notebook paper with crude pencil drawings of scenarios and characters from the game. Who needs a phone with a PDA like this?

Close up shot of Harold’s hand moving a slider on a control panel. Above the slider is a square screen displaying 2 overlapping red and blue waveforms. There are two sliders on the control panel, each of them controls one of the waveforms on the display. Everything is made by hand.

Distant shot of Harold standing with his hand on the wall of a pyramid-like structure inside a colorful alien cave. On the floor are pools of water roughly the size of bathtubs. On the triangular walls there are irregular organic white shapes on the blue and grey speckled stone. There are only a handful of locations in the game but they all stay with you.

Distant shot of the Agora Arcades plaza within the FEDORA I spaceship. This section of the crashed underwater spaceship functions as a mall and food court. Even in the depths of an alien ocean we will need a food court.

Distant shot of Harold standing amongst the games cast of characters during a dance party in the Social District of the FEDORA I. A disco ball illuminates a lobby filled with elementary school educational decor. Amazing interiors filled with a lovable cast of characters.

Medium shot of Cyrus, a botanist and physicist, placing a scientific slide transparency on a projector. As he looks at the diagram of an object escaping a planet’s orbit, he exclaims “Huh! Interesting.” Launch day is approaching.

Medium shot of Harold standing at the end of a hallway full of closed doors. The door immediately to his right stands ajar. Harold faces the wall at the end of the hallway, which has been painted in the style of an optical illusion to make the hallway seem to extend further towards a large painting of a fountain. Something is not quite right on this ship.

Distant shot of Harold and Cyrus standing in the botanical laboratory looking out the transparent walls towards a nearby diver grabbing at a piece of debris. This game is like a message in a bottle.

I loved this peek behind the scenes of how the game art, characters, and objects were created by hand and paintstakingly translated to the game.

This game is a must for fans of Anomalisa, Fired on Mars, Wallace and Gromit, or any point-and-click narrative adventure.

2024-08-02 Games J

Music Stats - July 2024

Our favorite albums in July 2024. Stats generated by Albums and Last.fm.

👨🏼‍🎤 J

J’s music listening report for the month of July 2024. A grid of albums and charts indicates the listening habits over the course of the month. Album plays: 32. Hours listened: 18. Unique albums: 31. Average plays per day: 1. 9 albums played for the first time. 17 albums added to the library. 0 albums played from All Time Top 50. 12:00 pm most listened time of day. 18 of 31 days listened J - Listening Report for July 2024

J - Top Albums for July 2024

👩🏾‍🎤 V

V’s music listening report for the month of July 2024. A grid of albums and charts indicates the listening habits over the course of the month. Album plays: 275. Hours listened: 73. Unique albums: 232. Average plays per day: 9. 136 albums played for the first time. 81 albums added to the library. 9 albums played from All Time Top 50. 2:00 pm most listened time of day. 29 of 31 days listened V - Listening Report for July 2024

V - Top Albums for July 2024

2024-08-01 J V Music

Travellers Rest (2020)

⛹🏾‍♀️ V · 🎮 Steam Deck · ⏱️ 22h

Box art for Travellers Rest. The game’s title is written in an old timey font on a rustic wooden sign. Resting on the sign is a green bird and an overflowing mug of beer. The background of the image is a blue and green mountain landscape. Tavern building simulator by Isolated Games.

Build your own tavern in Travellers Rest.

Two square bedrooms attached to the tavern. Upstairs

The tavern and dining area at the front of house. Tavern

The kitchen and bedroom at the back of house. Kitchen and bedroom

2024-07-31 Games V

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