I thought Dragon Quest Builders was cool but Dragon Quest Builders 2, with it’s promise of a multiplayer endgame existing in perpetuity and a commitment to ongoing content, essentially dominates my free time. It’s all being poured into this tiny device. I will watch Gabe stream it while also playing it, in an effort to “hack” living such that I can experience more of it within the clutching and greedy span capricious fate has allotted me. I run this battery into the ground daily, and then must resort to - avert your eyes, Mother - playing in docked mode.

I had read that it was only an hour or so before you could access multiplayer, and while I would say that it probably took me longer than most to get there I’m prepared to call “an hour” a hateful lie. I don’t think ten times that would be out of the question, or more, if you were enjoying yourself or of you managed to get hung up on some quest trigger that isn’t clear. It’s literally the only thing that bothers me about the game - I like it so much that I often accomplish or discover things ahead of time, and it does its best to catch up, but I often have to retrace my steps to understand why I haven’t ticked something forward. Maybe it would help if I read some of this text?

Somebody on Twitter said “isn’t that just Minecraft with slimes” and I said, no Minecraft is just Dragon Quest Builders 2 with no motivation. It’s not all churl. I get Minecraft and I think it’s amazing, but as a platform for people to express themselves in either with the systems or the world or by making new systems out of its guts. I can’t really work in either of those. DQB2 lets me “get” how people live in there, and it’s at that level of mania. Plus, the end of the first island is legitimately one of the brightest, most life affirming moments I’ve ever had in a videogame. I’m not exaggerating.

I’m not as much into aesthetics as Ol’ Mr. Gribbs, and I had a problem where I couldn’t figure out how to hang the Harvest Festival pennants anywhere but… the bathrooms, only the bathrooms were decorated for the celebration, but I did my best and I like to think the unfeeling algorithms that govern my AI citizenry made note.

The Finale of “The Velvet Cloak,” the middle bit of the third season of Acquisitions Incorporated: The “C” Team starts tonight at 4pm PDT on the le Twitch, but it’s the culmination of so many things that you might want to start earlier. That’s something we take pretty seriously, the idea that we’re asking a lot of you, which is why you can watch live or catch the vod, catch it on the YouTube playlist, or wherever you listen to podcasts, even if you just want the RSS. There’s even recaps to help get you caught up. There’s Never Been A Better Time, etc.

(CW)TB out.