July 2020 Newsletter

Hello to all the aliens out there.

We're ramping into an absolutely bizarre back half of the summer here in the United States, and I hope that you're all doing well wherever you are. I'm here to tell you what we've been up to this month.

First up: we hit the goal for JUST KING THINGS, our Stephen King podcast where we read all of his books in publication order. It's going to take us a few weeks to get it off the ground, but we've gotten the ball rolling with ordering books, commissioning a theme and art, and all the things you have to do when you launch a podcast. I hope you're excited for that, and if you're a new patron here just to hear that: welcome! It's coming!

GAME STUDIES STUDY BUDDIES, our show where we read books of game studies so you don't have to, came out earlier today. We read a very new book, Susan Laxton's SURREALISM AT PLAY, and we both enjoyed it a lot. It's a great palette cleanser from the last episode, and we go long talking about these surrealist projects and what they have to do with play. It's a book that could really change game studies if its theoretical contributions were taken seriously, so I encourage you all to read it. You can listen to the episode here. 

TOO MUCH FUTURE continues. We've almost completed Fallout 2, and everyone is getting tired of it. The show remains interesting, though, simply because we're digging down into the fine-grained ideas of the game's universe. You can listen to us talking about New California Republic and Navarro and San Francisco in our last two episodes. We've recorded through the end of the game, and next week will be the final episode of Fallout 2. After that we'll take a short hiatus and come back for Fallout 3. Remember that if you subscribe to the Patreon for $3 or more you can listen to the show in podcast form. 

And by the way: thanks for being Patrons! Michael did not have a computer that would be able to run the upcoming Fallout titles, but yall helped us pay for part of it! Thanks! Your support directly contributes to the show. 

Over on the YouTube, we released an archives episode from a couple years ago when Danni was speedrunning McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure. You can watch and enjoy that. 

Starting this week, CMRN will be streaming Bayonetta over at twitch.tv/rangedtouch at 6pm Eastern on Thursdays. It'll be a good time! The XCOM 2 stream imploded in a way that only that game can. We are all forbidden from thinking about it.

The VICE CITY LP for $5 patrons has sort of gotten backburner'd, but it is not abandoned, and we appreciate your patience. Mere moments after this newsletter, I will post the new Ranged Touch podcast, where Danni and CMRN talk about movies and the ultimate furlough quesadilla. 

Projects that are in the hopper that you might be interested in: an explainer video for Anti-Oedipus using Metal Gear Solid; a short series of videos promoting small, independent games that CMRN likes. Both should be out in the next 8 weeks or so.

Also: apparently Patreon is now taxing pledges from some countries? We have no idea how this works, and we are assuming you received an email from them about it. The emails that creators are getting are basically panic-filled "warn your supporters!!!" things because they assume that you are going to abandon the platform. Please do not do that.

That's it for this month! Thanks to everyone for supporting this month and we'll be back with all kinds of good stuff next month!