hi idk what to put here

A lot of these games feel like they rely on the fun-with-friends aspect too much—and it gets deflating if you're stuck with randos, let alone going solo, to a surprisingly cold and bitter degree when you decide to try them out after seeing all those clips.

None of these games are really for solo play. They're all designed to keep your agency limited in ways that make the rest of your party really important—with people you can only really work and bond with if they're your friends. They even get surprisingly difficult in a tedious way if you're doing all those objectives all by yourself—if there’s even anything compelling to do alone in the first place.

If you decided to play with randos—too many lobbies are private, and too many public ones are hosted by people who either have wildly different schedules that will make them leave you hanging, or established friend groups that will make you the quiet third wheel—not to mention the odd chance of running into horrible people.

Too many of them even have progression systems that are a little too long-term for good "quick play" sessions, in ways that force "meetups" if you wanna keep that progress. Maybe they don't even have progression systems at all.

It's just a "cup of tea" issue, really—but I can never blame newcomers for being brutally disappointed after chasing that hype for themselves, and neither do I to outside observers being wary of trying them out because of that disappointment.

If someone's gonna design a new game that would address this issue: Look no further than Left 4 Dead 2.

It's already a fantastic single-player experience not only because of the bots' reliability, individual agency, and game director that keeps shaking things up despite the constant objectives of its campaigns—but also the fact that it has a compelling narrative that you can focus on instead if you don't have anyone to play with, one that you can keep coming back to: environmental storytelling, adaptive difficulty, and character dialogues—Especially character dialogues. It's mind-blowing how much you can learn from each of them just because Valve decided to fill in the Dead Air (heh) in exploratory moments. Finally, the campaigns themselves are good for single sessions, and the chapters in them are perfectly short and sweet—The only progression you'll have to worry about are weapons and resources that you'll lose anyway after each of those campaigns.

It's even better with friends considering how you're all forced to work together to survive, and the issue with public lobbies is still present—but it's still very much a blast playing all by yourself thanks to Valve still heavily investing on its single-player aspect.

On the flip-side I feel like there's another game to follow when it comes to leaning into a more "social lubricant" online chatroom experience: Webfishing.

It already filtered itself from bad actors who would target its intended audience solely to the fact that it's a casual fishing game—so yeah, there's nothing to lose or be toxic over. (Trust me, a troll's biggest weakness is simply boredom—all because they have no way to harm your experience other than through messages that you can mute, presence that you can block, or traces you can disable.) You can just come and leave—the only gatekeeping you'll ever face is the age rating of whatever server you're joining. Finally, the max player count of its lobbies tend to be decent, 12 instead of 4—There will always be enough people, and you can interact with them at your own pace. You can just do your thing, chat up out of nowhere, or seek attention in whatever silly way you prefer without disrupting them at all. You can enjoy the atmosphere in quiet parallel play, or have actual conversations—never an awkward in-between. You can go AFK for hours, or even give everyone gifts to help them progress faster—either way, you can just be present around people—some may be in established friend groups, but there will always be a fellow stranger. Neither approach is superior over the other when it comes to being compelling enough for solo play: One's a fantastic experience even without friends, and another makes it far easier to socialize with people in ways that facilitates forming friendships with them—or at least make them neat substitutes for your friends if you have none to play with. You'd be surprised where the longest-lasting bonds form. Hell, you can even be like me, who lives for the hangouts with people I know I'll never meet again. Again, it's just a "cup of tea" thing—but I think their marketing also fueled the haters. Maybe seeing people have so much of the fun that they can never have over and over again gets obnoxious, especially at the height of those games' popularity—probably not even out of bitterness or misery, really, just sad buyer's remorse or FOMO. There's genuine criticism in there—as insufferable as they are about it.

- Was eventually trialed by governments of the world as a scapegoat and sent to prison

- She somehow BROKE out of said prison and currently commandeers a rogue paramilitary faction of Project Hail Mary loyalists who believe in her over world governments, who presumably are still hunting her down

- She currently is on the run and staying mobile on an ice breaker ship like some kind of james bond villain base (but you know, good) while STILL working on project hail mary the whole time

- Her rogue loyalist faction controlled enough resources they could go to space and collect the beetles Grace had sent. Alternatively, it was the world government that collected the beetles, and Stratt had a whole ass heist movie to steal them, which is why she had the little xenonite figure at the end of the movie. Either ways she was running circles around them.

Some years ago (6? 7 years ago, I think?) there was a pirate exhibit at the state museum. We had actual artifacts from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, creepy wax dummies, historical costumes etc, it was awesome.

I was really into Pirates of the Caribbean at the time, because I played the mmorpg with some high school friends of mine (and some of their parents sometimes, who also got addicted to it), so of course when they announced “Pirate Night at the Museum”, in which visitors were encouraged to dress up, I was over the moon. So I’m there with my friends, my parents, and my sisters, running around the exhibits after the museum is technically closed.

They replaced the creepy wax dummies with people in costume at this point, and it was pretty epic.

The highlight of the night would be a showing of The Princess Bride. The movie would play on the big screen while actors would be on a stage below, acting the whole thing out word for word and shot for shot as it happened. Any audience members who knew lines were encouraged to shout them out as they heard them.

Here’s the thing. My parents love that movie. Like you don’t understand they were quoting it to us in its entirety when we were still in highchairs. I could reenact the battle of wits scene before I ever actually watched it. So my family sits in the front row, behind the railing, quoting everything right along with the actors and film.

And then comes the part in the Pit of Despair with the Albino. And the cast didn’t have anyone on the stage with Wesley.  I don’t know if the Albino couldn’t make it that night, or if they’d never cast him, but it was really weird to see Wesley just lying on the stage awkwardly while the Albino is supposed to be treating his injuries.

I started twitching. My mom and sister look at me and they’re like “do it.” And one of the ushers is like “you know the part? do it”

So I launch over the railing, run up onto the stage, and take over from there, doing my best impression of the character. Being that I was a 5′2″ blonde girl in a corset and puffy sleeves, Wesley had some trouble keeping a straight face.

Then they got to the scene with Humperdink telling the guard to clear out the Thieves’ Forest, and…they didn’t have the guard either. So my twin sister up in the audience is like “hang on, I got this” and then she launches over the railing to make sure Humperdink isn’t just sitting awkwardly talking to thin air.

This meant that yes, I got bopped on the noggin by Fezzik, and yes, my sister got to do the “Give us the key.” “What key?” “Fezzik, tear his arms off.” “Oh, you mean this key!” 

They made up stay on stage and take a bow with the cast when it was over, it was hilarious. Then the next year, since they still had the exhibit, the museum called my sister and was like, “So….that was super fun last year. Do you and your sister want to be audience plants and do it again this year?”

Enter Donald, a gay Puerto Rican man who rolls up in an electric Kia with a rainbow Zelda shirt. I know he is Puerto Rican because that is the theme of his car's decor. He's probably in his late forties. He's gushing over the cat but his demeanor changes when I tell him how sick she is and how I need to get her to the ER. He solemnly informs me, "I'll take care of it," and RIPS out of the parking lot of my building.

Dude is flooring it. The entire time he is sending his husband text-to-speech messages about, "Going to the vet, do you want me to go in and talk to them?" He informs me that he actually needed to go speak to the vet at this clinic anyway--his dog who he just had to put down yesterday went there for renal failure treatments--and that "fate brought us together." He tells the cat to hang in there, that, "Girl, I will take care of you."

He turns on his emergency blinkers. He's weaving through traffic like he used to professionally race. Any gap he sees, he takes it. It is terrifying but I am in awe.

We get to blocked traffic because it is rush hour. He asks me if I trust him. I tell him, "I guess I have to in this situation," and he nods and swings into the shoulder, guns it, whips around the traffic, and takes off on a side road. The GPS means nothing to him. He knows exactly where he's going and he is beating the traffic jams for the sake of the cat. She can't wait.

When we pull into the vet clinic, he goes in with me. As my cat is taken in, he asks me if I want to see pictures of his late dog. He shows me a picture of a chihuahua in a bow tie and it is the cutest fucking dog I've ever seen. He tells me how his husband is a dog trainer and the dog had been around the world, and that this vet is a good one and my cat will be fine.

I compliment his shirt and he nods like Arnold at the end of Terminator 2. Then he just marches out the door.

Anyway. The cat is staying overnight at the emergency vet but seems to be doing fine aside from not wanting to eat. Apparently, this is a $2.5k case of "your cat has a cold and is constipated, and what you thought was respiratory distress was her gagging on snot while nauseous." We pick her up sometime today.