It's been another week on Jank, and a surprisingly soggy one. Brendy celebrated the particularly alluring appeal of watersports walking simulator Pools: 

Have you ever noticed how nervousness and excitement are the same feeling? I mean bodily, when you stop and examine what's going on in your belly and on your skin and to your breathing. It's all the same response: something is about to happen. Pools makes me feel that way. For this reason, you could chalk the game up as a damp squib - after three hours of anticipation, nothing does happen. But it doesn't matter to me. Just to live in that feeling of butterfly belly and to walk through this soggy maze wondering what's around the next corner is enough. 

 He also commended Sandcastles, a game which offers everything the title promises: 

I have fond memories of battling the tide with sand as a kid, trying to keep a fort from crumbling, piling up new walls like the sea is an invading army, and secretly revelling in the collapsing facades, relishing my losing fight. Is this what Dwarf Fortress is like for Nate? Sandcastle captures that feeling with

It’s been another week in PC gaming, plus an extra day because I had some family business so apologies for the late running. Jeremy Peel kicked things off by explaining that Microsoft has always been a problem for PC gaming so we should not expect it to change now. Yes, they gave us DirectX, but they also gave us Games For Windows Live. 

It was never clear what value GFWL offered players. Nobody wanted its achievements, Gamerscore or messaging functionality, since the social hubs of PC gamers existed elsewhere. The much-vaunted crossplay between Windows and Xbox 360 barely materialised. And of course, it was the home to plenty of clumsy DRM, a role that sealed its fate in the court of public opinion. GFWL was there to police players rather than to help them.

Graham somehow curated good game writing without even being here. Upon his return he reviewed Emuurom and wants you to know that while it contains vast and complex depths you can still enjoy it for much simpler reasons. 

If you love Animal Well and Blue Prince, I think Emuurom could be your new favourite game. Someone less dummy than me might therefore

Another week has passed in glorious Jank, which means that (thanks to the generous backing of our supporters) we have survived six months and written, yikes, over 200 articles. Brendy summarised some highlights but really it's all good and we added still more this week, starting with Nic Rueben's delight at ZeroSpace’s shameless appropriation of both Starcraft and Mass Effect:  

And yet, like, there is something here, flittering about the halls of its hilariously brazen necropolis of zombie inspirations like a moth caught in a packet of moth-flavoured crisps. Do I dare call that something soul? 

He certainly can, it's our site and there is nobody to stop it. As further proof, for this month’s Living in Sim Brendy had a great time in a filthy astrology lab:

Eventually, I discover an asteroid, a planet, and a white dwarf. A few weaker signals dissolve before I can even readjust the satellites to look at them. My bosses are not impressed and they routinely pay me less than my daily wage because I have not fulfilled their exact orders in the emails. You are supposed to go outside and hike or bike